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KATURE, 




7f;; 

A SERIES OE EAMILIAR SKETCHES, 



CHARLES ADAMS, D. D. 



^ I meditate on all thy works."" — PsALM CXLIII, $. 




CINCINNA TI: 
HITCHCOCK AND W^ A L D E N . 

NEW YORK: 
CARLTON AND LAN A HAN. 



.A3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, 
BY HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of Ohio. 



I 



e d i; t a 1 1 n » 



WILLIAM H. ALLEN, LL. D., 

President of Girard College. 

My Friend and Classmate: 

WO reasons have specially prompted me to place your 
name in this little volume. One is the fact that you 
have so long and so successfully devoted your eminent 
abilities to the education and welfare of youth — a work 
in harmony with the genius of this my humble effort; 
and another reaso7t is founded upon those invariably 
pleasant relations^ and that sincere friendships which 
commenced vjith our college days, atid upon which 
time and separation have^ as I trusty exerted no 
disturbing influence. 

With profound and affectionate respect^ 



Introdujction. 



•-~>V^JW^-'^~ 




HIS book aims to present to young 
readers, in a familiar style and orderly 
arrangement, the more prominent nat- 
ural phenomena of the earth. It lays . no 
claim to being profound, learned, or original ; 
while yet it endeavors, by lucid statement 
and appropriate illustration, to attract special 
attention to many matters which, from their 
commonness, are too apt to be but slightly ap- 
preciated. 

The natural world is full of marvels ; but 
to the few only, it is to be feared, do these 
wondrous things' come home with a proper 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

realization, and the great multitude pass on 
blindfold through this scene of enchantment, 
their minds and hearts never opening to the 
charms and wonders wherewith the God of 
nature hath furnished and adorned this beauti- 
ful world. 

Happy the writer whose magical pen should 
so touch these concealed glories as to cause 
them to flash vividly before the startled eye, 
and thus constrain the dullness and blindness 
of millions to give place to a clear and perfect 
vision ! " Open his eyes that he may see !" 
prayed the solemn prophet in behalf of his 
mystified and confused servant. And when 
the prayer was heard, and the scales fell, and 
he saw clearly, behold, the mountain was full 
of horses and chariots of fire round about 
Elisha ! 

This opening of eyes, this purifying of the 
vision, is one of the world's great necessities. 
God is all around us, his marvelous working is 
every-where. Nature is but his outbeaming, 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

and at every motion of ours we touch his 
goodness, and are ever stepping to the music 
of his boundless beneficence. 

It is sad, then, that we should tread heed- 
lessly, when to move along this world care- 
fully and wakefully is to keep company with 
God and walk in paradise. 




I 



n t ^ r J t s ♦ 



Sketch. Page. 

Salutatory, 13 

I. The Earth, 18 

II. The Earth's Shape, 22 

III. Earth's Shape Illustrated, . . . 26 

IV. Earth's Shape Further Illustrated, . 30 
V. Earth's Dimensions, .... 34 

VI. Earth's Superficial Dimensions, . . 38 

VII. Earth's Solid Dimensions, ... 42 

VIII. Earth's Motions, 46 

IX. Earth's Motions Imperceptible, -. ' . 52 

X. Diurnal Revolution, 57 

XI. Night, 62 

XII. Day, 67 

XIIT. The Seasons, 71 

XIV. Equinoxes, k 76 

XV. Summer Solstice, 80 

XVI. Winter Solstice, . . . . . .85 

XVII. Zones, 89 

XVIII. Continents, 94 

9 



lO A CONTENTS. 

Sketch. Page. 

XIX. Oceans, loo 

XX. Mountain Systems, . . . . io6 

XXI. Dimensions of Mountains, . . . iii 

XXII. Mountain Passes, . . . . 115 

XXIII. Mountain Ascents, . , . .119 

XXIV. Mountain Experiences, ... 123 
XXV. Sacred Mountains, . . . .128 

XXVI. Plains, ....... 136 

XXVII. Plateux, 140 

XXVIII. Depressions, 143 

XXIX. Valleys, . 146 

XXX. Deserts, 152 

XXXI. Earthquakes, 156 

XXXII. Earthquakes of 1868, . . . 161 

XXXIII. Volcanoes, 165 

XXXIV. Caverns, 171 

XXXV. Rocks, 175 

XXXVI. Minerals — Iron, . . . . 179 

XXXVII. Coal, 184 

XXXVIII. Soils, ....... 188 

XXXIX. Grasses, ....... 193 

XL. Trees, . . . . . . -197 

XLI. Uses of Trees, 202 

XLII. Tides, 206 

XLIII. Rivers, . . . . . . .211 

XLIV. Cataracts, 215 



CONTENTS. 1 1 

Sketch. Page. 

XLV. Lakes, 222 

XLVI. Springs, (i,) 227 

XLVII. Springs, (2,) ...... 232 

XLVIII. Water, ....... 235 

XLIX. Clouds, , . . . . . -239 

L. Rain, 243 

LI. Dew, . . 248 

LIL Ice, 252 

LIII. Glaciers, 256 

LIV. Icebergs, 261 

LV. Heat, 265 

LVI. Light, 270 

LVII. Color, 275 

LVIII. Sound, 280 

LIX. Atmosphere, (i,) 285 

LX. Atmosphere, (2,) 291 

LXI. Atmosphere, (3,) 294 

LXII. Climate, 299 

LXIII. Winds, 304 

LXIV. Whirlwinds, 311 

LXV. Uses of Winds, 316 

LXVI. Rain-Storms, ...... 323 

LXVII. Thunder-Storms, 327 

LXVIII. Snow-Storms, 332 

LXIX. Animal Creation, 335 

Valedictory, 339 



iUustJ'ations. 



FACE PAGE. 

Nature, . Frontispiece. 

Coral Reefs, 40 

Night, . . . ; 64 

Winter, , . . 75 

The Ocean, . . . . . . . . .102 

The Earthquake, ....... 162 

Crater of Kilauea, 170 

Caverns, 174 

The Rock and the Light-House, . . . .178 

The Tree, 198 

The Tide, . 208 

The Rapids, . . . . . . . . 215 

At the Spring, 234 

The Glacier, 258 

The Winds and the Seas, 308 

The Animal Creation, 336 



12 



The Earth and its Wonders. 



Salutatorij* 




Y YOUNG FRIENDS— It has oc- 
curred to me to prepare specially for 
you a series of familiar sketches, 
touching some of the works of God which we 
see on this earth. The Scriptures declare 
"Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord 
God Almighty : in wisdom hast thou made 
them all." 

These great and marvelous works are all 
around us. Many of them we see, and very 
many others are more or less concealed from 
us. And then, again, many of these works 
which we see every day are but partially 
known to us. We do not notice and study 

13 



14 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

them as we ought, nor do we sufficiently con- 
nect them with the great Hand that created 
them. Thus we are prone too much to con- 
template the works of Nature as we do those 
of Art — that is, we confine our attention to 
the work itself y with but little thought of its 
Maker or Author. 

Now, we should never for a moment forget 
that what we call the ''works of Nature," are 
nothing less than the works of God ; and if 
there is such an arrangement as that which we 
call Natiii^e, God himself has established this 
arrangement, and he upholds it forever. 

These works of Nature, or, more properly, 
of the God of Nature, are of exceeding interest 
to all who examine and study them in the 
proper manner, and with the proper spirit. 
They are, indeed, one of the means by which 
God manifests himself to us. They are one 
of his grand revelations. They tell us, as 
plainly as words can tell us, of God's greatness," 
of his wonderful power, skill, wisdom, benevo- 
lence, and love. Words could tell us of all 
these, but the works of God ilhcstrate them — 
show them, and that, too, most clearly and 
convincingly. 



SALUTATORY. 1 5 

And then how interesting to a good youth 
of either sex, or to any good person, is the 
study of the Creator s works ! We are all apt 
to feel the less interest here from the fact that 
we are so familiar with many of these works. 
We have always seen them, and had some ac- 
quaintance with them. They have been, as it 
were, our companions from the beginning of 
our lives, and we come to look upon them as 
things of course, and as we look upon our own 
hands or feet. They are, so to speak, old to 
us, and yet all young people should keep in 
mind that there is much about these old things 
that would be new to us — much that has never 
yet entered into our thoughts. And these 
new ideas about these old things are, many 
of them, such as would interest us greatly, 
and would even present them as new and 
wonderful. 

Let my young friends suppose it possible 
for them to be transported to the moon, where 
every thing would be actually new to them. 
With what intense interest and curiosity would 
they light down upon that strange world! 
How eagerly would they notice every thing! 
How interesting every step would be! And 



l6 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

if there were beings, or mountains, and vales, 
and rivers there, how clearly would every 
object be mapped upon their minds ! But the 
earth where we are is at least as wonderful as 
the moon, and there are, doubtless, as many 
curious things here to interest, and things, 
too, as new to us as any object or fact con- 
nected with the moon. 

Come, then, my friends, and contemplate 
with me this great earth of ours. Let us walk 
over it together, and notice a great many 
things that may be both old and new to us ; 
let us seek out the less familiar things, and 
we may be assured that if our eyes are open, 
and we look and consider attentively, we shall 
be not only instructed and interested, but we 
shall be rendered happier and better amid 
these pleasant walks of ours. 

It is true, I shall be a stranger to most of 
you, and our rambles will not be to you as if 
with a father or mother, or some other one 
known and loved by you. And yet I may 
promise you that it shall be a friend whom 
you are to accompany— a friend, too, of your 
parents, some of whom were my pupils in 
their own bright morning days of life, and 



SALUTATORY. 1 7 

used to roam with me amid some of these 
same interesting scenes before you had yet 
begun to be. 

With the kindest remembrances of these 
fathers and mothers, and with the most re- 
spectful regard for those of your parents whom 
I have never seen, as well as with the most 
ardent wishes for your own best welfare, I 
subscribe myself, my dear young friends. 

Yours, most truly and affectionately, 

2 C. ADAMS. 




The Earth. 




S this earth is to be the subject of our 
contemplations in these Sketches, let 
us first glance at it as a whole. 
The earth, as you are aware, has the appear- 
ance of a vast plain or level, in the center of 
which we seem to be living and acting. Over- 
head is the sky or firmament, which, in the 
language of Dr. Chalmers, " presents an im- 
mense concave resting down upon the circu- 
lar boundary of the world." This is the ap- 
pearance ; and we can well remember when 
we thought it was precisely so. To our eye 
and imagination the earth was the great plain 
just noticed, spread all around us as a mighty 
wheel ; and on the circumference of this wheel 

came down the sky, closing in the great round 
i8 



THE EARTH. I9 

world in every direction. And no wonder if 
it occurred to us more than once, in those 
sweet days of childhood, that, on some bright 
and sunny afternoon, we would take a tramp 
across the intervening fields and pastures, and 
see how it looked where that solid and beauti- 
ful sky came down to meet the underlying and 
substantial earth ! Such was one of the delu- 
sive imaginings of our life's early morning ; 
and if, as we grow older and wiser, it may ex- 
cite a smile, it may be useful for us to remem- 
ber that many other dreams are still lingering 
with us, which, however, are equally delusive 
and baseless. 

On what foundation this great circular earth 
was resting while the sky was reposing with 
all its weight upon the huge circumference, 
came not, perhaps, into our little minds to in- 
quire. This w^as a question, however, which 
seems to have bothered many older minds in 
darker ages of the world's history ; and many 
a childish theory was invented touching this 
same mysterious foundation. Some dreamed 
that the great and far-reaching plain rested 
upon the shoulders of a huge giant standing 
beneath ; or on the back of a tremendous ser- 



20 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

pent; or some other support of enormous 
strength. But none of the inventors of these 
curious theories have ever explained to us the 
foundation on which rested the feet of the 
giant himself, or the belly of the awful ser- 
pent. Happy for us, when little children, that 
none of these vexatious questions, or theories, 
ever came into mind. It was enough for us 
that all beneath our little feet was solid and 
firm, and that not the shadow of a suspicion 
arose to trouble us as to the question of our 
perfect security. With us it was as if we 
heard and understood that great voice telling 
of Him "who laid the foundation of the earth 
that it should not be removed forever.'* 

And right here, perhaps, some bright boy 
or girl who have read their Bibles and have 
noticed such passages as I have just quoted, 
will inquire why the Bible itself should speak 
of the earth as it looks, as if it were indeed 
flat and circular, and rested upon some under- 
lying foundations. 

This is a reasonable inquiry, and we answer 
it by saying, first, that the Bible was designed 
to instruct all classes of people, the ignorant 
as well as the learned ; secondly, it was not 



THE EARTH. 21 

designed to teach science, but religion, and 
religious truth and duty. Hence, thirdly, the 
Bible is neither arranged scientifically, nor in 
its allusions to the heavens and earth does it 
speak of them in such a style or manner as 
accords with scientific exactness, but, rather, 
as these things appear to our vision. Thus 
the Bible, as above, speaks of the earth as 
having foundation ; as if it were erected upon 
something, as a house. Science, on the other 
hand, treats of the earth in this respect, as it 
really is, and not as it seems to be. The Bible 
speaks of the "ends of the earth," as if there 
were really such " ends." Science instructs 
us that, in fact, the earth has no ends. The 
Bible alludes to the sun just as it appears to 
our vision, as rising and setting. But science 
places it as central and stationary so far as it 
relates to the earth. The Bible speaks of the 
stars according to their appearance. Science 
treats of them as they actually are, and at an 
infinite remove from the aspect they present 
to the eye. 



II. 



Tli^ Earth^s $hape. 



IF the earth which we inhabit is not 
flat, as the ancients suppose, and as 
many even of its present inhabitants 
believe, what is its actual shape ? As you 
have already learned, the earth is globular. It 
is not, indeed, a perfect globe, but so nearly 
so that were we to see an exact model of its 
shape, the eye would discern no difference 
between it and a perfect sphere. It is slightly 
flattened at the poles, as if you should take 
between your two hands an orange perfectly 
globular, and thus apply to it the slightest 
pressure. Then the diameter from one hand 
to the other would be an atom less than an- 
other diameter across this one at right angles 
to it. This difierence between the two diame- 

22 



THE EARTH'S SHAPE. 23 

ters thus represented, is about twenty-six 
miles. This, though considerable of itself, is, 
however, a very small quantity when compared 
to nearly eight thousand miles, the length of 
the earth's diameter ; and the proportion of 
the two diameters is thus exactly ' as three 
hundred and one to three hundred and two. 
It is not necessary to suppose that this was 
the exact shape of the earth when first created, 
or that this shape was otherwise than a perfect 
sphere ; for, had it been such at the beginning, 
its swift and constant motion, in entirely re- 
volving upon its axis every twenty-four hours, 
would naturally and gradually tend to withdraw 
the material of the earth from the poles toward 
the equator, thus forming a slight protuber- 
ance in the equatorial regions at the expense 
of the polar regions. 

The process may be well illustrated by im- 
agining a knitting-needle thrust, at the stem, 
directly through an orange ; the two ends of 
the needle would represent the north and south 
poles of the earth. Now, immerse the orange 
in a vessel of oil, and then whirl it rapidly on 
the needle as its axis, and mark the result. 
The oil will be measurably drawn away from 



24 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

around the needle at either end, and sHghtly 
heaped up on the part of the orange which is 
equidistant from the two poles, that is, upon 
the equator. 

In the first chapter of the Bible, where we 
read the Mosaic account of the creation of our 
earth as it now appears, we have the globe rep- 
resented as previously being entirely covered 
with water. If, as is quite probable, it was 
then, and afterward, revolving upon its axis, 
the phenomenon above noticed, of the dimin- 
ishing of the polar substance and a correspond- 
ing accumulation at and around the equator, 
would have been a certain consequence. 

Our earth, then, is of globular shape, not- 
withstanding it has the seeming of a vast 
plain ; and it will not be difficult for you to 
comprehend why it has this appearance. It is 
because of its prodigious extent. Were we to 
stand on a great ball of a mile in diameter, 
and three miles around it, we should not seem 
as now to be standing upon a plain, but, look- 
ing hither and thither, we should observe the 
surface of the ball gradually curving downward 
in every direction from the point where we 
might be standing, while, at the distance of a 



THE EARTU'S SHAPE. 2$ 

quarter of a mile, more or less, the surface 
would sink entirely from our sight. 

Not at all so, however, as we stand on this 
immense ball which we call the earth. Here, 
on whatever plain or ocean we may be, there 
is no perceptible curvature downward within 
the reach of our vision, and hence, wherever 
we may walk or sail, the aspect is that of an 
immense plain, varied on the open sea by noth- 
ing, and interrupted on the land only by hills 
or forest, as it stretches away to the far 
horizon. 




III. 



Batth^s $hape Illustrated* 




OME of you may not as yet have 
clearly understood how it is ascer- 
tained that our world is a globe, since 
it has scarcely any appearance of being such. 
There are several very clear and conclusive 
proofs of this great fact. Let us, in the first 
place, undertake a long imaginary journey, and 
as this our journey is to be imaginary, we will 
start from where we please, and take just the 
direction we please. The city of Washington, 
then, shall be our point of departure, and pre- 
cisely west shall be our direction. Of course 
we shall go on this line sheer across the conti- 
nent, and come, some day, to San Francisco. 
Here, taking one of the steamships now con- 
stantly plying the great Pacific Ocean, we will 
26 



EARTH'S SHAPE ILLUSTRATED. 2/ 

continue our course due west, and come in 
about twenty days to Jeddo, in Japan. Thence, 
still going due west, we will take passage 
across the Japan and Yellow seas, and starting 
from Pekin, in China, we will continue our far 
western way over Asia and the Hellespont 
to Constantinople ; whence, by land and sea, 
still westward we will reach Lisbon, in Portu- 
gal ; where, embarking with our prow exactly 
west, we will cross the Atlantic, and, land- 
ing at the mouth of Delaware Bay, and pro- 
ceeding overland, we will come to Washington 
again, the place of starting on this long, 
long journey. We have gone from Washing- 
ton, on a due western course, 25,000 miles, 
and, instead of being all that distance away 
from the city, we are at it again. We went 
out from the western side, and, without 
changing our course, we have come to the 
eastern side of the same city — that is, we have 
gone round the world from Washington to 
Washington. 

And now perhaps some one will answer me 
that I have proved the world to be round in 
an eastern and western direction, but this does 
not prove it to be so on a northern and south- 



28 THE EARTPI AND ITS WONDERS. 

ern line ; and it has never been sailed around 
by way of the North and South Poles, and 
probably never can be. Well, then, let us 
adopt another criterion. If we can not by 
reason of ice and cold go to the poles and pass 
beyond them, let us, in our second journey, go 
as far as possible. We will select the same 
starting place, the city of Washington, and lay 
our course, this time, due north instead of 
west. The latitude of Washington is very 
nearly 39°, and before starting we will direct 
our eyes exactly to the northern horizon, and 
then elevate them the same number of de- 
grees, 39°, and note a little star lying there, 
called the North Star. 

We will take with us a little instrument 
adapted to the purpose of noting the height 
of the stars above the horizon. Starting on 
our due northerly course, we presently reach 
Montreal, in Canada ; and then, with our in- 
strument, we ascertain that our North Star, 
instead of remaining at 39°, as when we 
started, has somehow lifted itself up full six 
degrees, and stands at 45°. How is this ? 
Continuing our journey nearly seven hundred 
miles north from Montreal, and again sighting 



EARTH'S SHAPE ILLUSTRATED. 29 

our guiding star, lo, it has ascended ten de- 
grees further up toward the zenith. How can 
this be true of a star that we thought was 
always stationary ? Only thus : it is not that 
our star has gone upward, but that we, in 
coming a thousand miles from Washington, 
have been all the time going downward. For 
had we been traveling upon a horizontal plane 
all along this northern tour, the star which, at 
Washington, was only 39"^ high, would still 
remain at the same elevation. But we have 
been traveling on an arc, instead of a straight 
line, and as on this arc we have gone down- 
ward under the star, the latter, by the same 
amount exactly, has gone upward. And should 
we go on to the pole itself, the North Star will 
stand directly overhead. 

This means that the path from Washington 
to the North Pole is an arc ; and the same is 
true of a path to the pole from any other 
point. That is, the north and south of the 
earth are globular as well as the east and west ; 
and this means that the whole is globular. 



IV. 



Earth's $hap^ Futthjet lUustrat^jl. 




IHERE is another consideration as 
much or more convincing, going to 
show that our earth is globular in- 
stead of being flat, cylindrical, or of any other 
shape. We refer to eclipses of the moon. You 
have doubtless learned that these eclipses are 
caused by the earth passing directly between 
the sun and moon, so that the huge shadow of 
the earth, projected out into space, hits the 
moon. And if the three centers, namely, 
those of the sun, moon, and earth, are in a 
straight line, when the earth falls between the 
sun and the moon, the latter will be wholly 
obscured by the earth's shadow, and continue 
so for two or three hours. On the other hand, 
if, in making the passage between the two 

30 



EARTH'S SHAPE ILLUSTRATED. 31 

luminaries, the earth fails to pass precisely be- 
tween them, but its center rises a little above 
or falls a little below, the straight line joining 
the other two centers, then the earth's shadow 
will strike only a part of the moon, and it will, 
consequently, be but partly eclipsed. Now this 
shadow of the earth on the moon, when the lat- 
ter is eclipsed, is always and invariably cwcu- 
lar. It never has a straight side, never has an 
angle, never is a mere line across the moon's 
face, never is concave, never any other shape 
than exactly circular and convex. And what 
is the shape of that object that, in any and all 
directions in which you can place it, forever 
casts such a shadow.^ To this question there 
is but one answer. It is a globe, and can be 
nothing else. 

Other considerations might be adduced lead- 
ing to the same conclusion ; but these are suf- 
ficient, and we may settle it in our minds as 
absolutely certain that the earth which we, for 
the present, inhabit, is a great globe or ball 
hanging in the mid heavens. It is also an un- 
doubted fact that the heavenly bodies around 
us, the sun itself, the moon, the planets, -and 
all the stars of the firmament, are of similar 



^2 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

shape. Some of these approach nearer the 
form of a perfect sphere, some others not so 
near ; but the globular shape, more or less 
perfect, they all doubtless possess. 

Why the great and all-wise Creator has 
given to ours and other worlds this character- 
istic shape is probably but partially known 
to us. But that there were very important 
and sufficient reasons for this we may be fully 
assured. He does nothing in vain, or capri- 
ciously, or wantonly, and without ample rea- 
sons ; and though we, with all our eager pene- 
tration, can see but a part of His ways, a very 
small part, yet a reason or two for the spheric- 
ity, or globular shape of the worlds, may not 
be beyond the perception of mortals. 

These great worlds, and ours with the rest, 
though apparently so stationary and still, are 
in motion ; and this motion is a flight through 
space so swift and awful as to be utterly 
and immeasurably beyond every human con- 
ception. And it is very likely, if not quite 
certain, that the globular shape is best 
adapted, if not indispensable, to the regu- 
larity and safety of such motion. Then, as 
to our globe, it is certain that this "round 



EARTH'S SHAPE ILLUSTRATED. 33 

world " is far better adapted to its purposes, es- 
pecially to the convenience, comfort, and even 
the safety, of animal nature, than any other 
conceivable form. To suppose the earth to 
have had given to it a cubical figure would be 
to suppose the greatest part of it uninhabit- 
able. At least two out of the six sides would 
doubtless have been as desolate as the polar 
regions of the globe now are, while the eight 
corners would have projected themselves into 
space, a sort of pyramidal mountains, many 
leagues in height, the drear abode of everlast- 
ing snow, and storms, and whirlwinds, and 
utter desolation. 

On the other hand, had the earth, instead 
of being a globe, been an immense plain as it 
actually appears to be, the present law of 
gravitation and the daily revolution upon its 
axis remaining as now, it is not easy to con- 
ceive how, not merely the animal creation, but 
the earth itself, could escape confusion and 
ruin. 3 



V. 



Th^ Barth^s i^im«nsians♦ 




UR world, then, is a ball. This is 
easy to say or write, but who may 
ever portray, or even begin to im- 
agine its prodigious dimensions? A simple 
process of mathematics will give^us the meas- 
urements, and we can write down the figures 
that express these measurements, and we can 
look at the figures and ponder them, and essay 
to imagine what they actually express. But 
all in vain. . 

But let us glance a moment at the measure- 
ments. First, let my young friends form a 
clear idea of what is termed a great circle of 
the earth. It is a circle or circumference 
drawn around the earth in any direction, so as 
to divide it into two equal parts. Thus the 
equator is an example of a great circle. We 
34 



THE EARTH'S DIMENSIONS. 35 

will suppose one of these great circles drawn 
around the earth at right angles to the equator, 
and, of course, passing through the North and 
South Poles. We call such a circle as this a 
meridian. We will now take a position on 
this meridian at 40° north latitude, and with 
our eye on the North Star, we will travel north 
until the star shall stand at 41° instead of 40°. 
As the star has ascended one degree, so we 
have traveled just one degree along the great 
circle. Here we will stop and travel back to 
the place of starting — measuring, as we go, the 
distance between the two points. Completing 
the measurement, we find the distance to be 
sixty-nine and one-half miles. This is the 
length of one degree of a great circle of the 
earth, by actual, careful, and exact measure- 
ment. Now, as in every circle there are 360 
degrees, if we multiply this length of one de- 
gree by three hundred and sixty, we shall have 
the whole extent of the circle, 25,020 miles. 
This, then, is the maximum or greatest dis- 
tance around this ball called earth. From this 
we deduce, by the ratio of the diameter and 
circumference of a circle, that the earth's 
diameter — its distance from one side, through 



36 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the center, to the opposite side— is about eight 
thousand miles. 

But what human mind can form any con- 
ception of these tremendous measurements or 
distances ? Sometimes in traveHng we discern 
an elevation seeming far, very far away in the 
dim distance before us. By a great effort our 
minds can, perhaps, take in all the long path 
leading to that object. Yet it is a conception 
of only about thirty miles, and this long reach, 
that requires so positive an effort to conceive 
adequately, must be multiplied to eight hun- 
dred and thirty-three times in order to extend 
around this enormous globe. A train of cars 
flying a mile a minute would require seven- 
teen days and a third of a day to traverse the 
amazing circuit. 

Such is the circumference and such the di- 
ameter of this ball on which we dwell. And 
if you wish to proceed further, and ascertain 
the extent of its whole surface, you have only 
to find, first, the extent of the surface, or area 
of the great circle, which is obtained by 
multiplying its circumference, 25,000 miles, by 
half its radius or one-fourth of its diameter, 
8,000 miles, and you have, in round numbers, 



THE EARTH'S DIMENSIONS. 37 

for the area of this great circle, 50,000,000 of 
square miles. Then, as multiplying the area 
of a great circle of a ball by four gives the 
area of its whole surface, you will thus have 
200,000,000 of square miles as the measure of 
the earth's surface. Now if we wish to pro- 
ceed a step further, and ascertain the solid 
contents of our world, the process is direct 
and simple. We have the surface in square 
miles, 200,000,000 ; we have the diameter in 
linear miles, 8,000. We have only then to 
multiply the surface by half the diameter, 
4,000, and afterward divide the product by 
three, and we shall have the mass of our globe 
in solid miles. How this is so, you will as- 
certain by the study of geometry. So, by 
the above multiplying, we shall find the solid 
contents to be nearly 260,000,000,000 of cubic 
or solid miles. All this inconceivable mass is 
under your feet as you walk and play, and 
spreads itself afar before and behind you, and 
is the great theater of your present but tran- 
sient dwelling-place. 



VI. 



Earth's ^wpierficial IHmensions, 



C^lba*,^^^ 



AM unwilling to dismiss this idea 
of the immensity of our earth with- 
out an attempt or two to illustrate 
further its inconceivable dimensions. And 
although all that may be said and written and 
pictured will never avail to lift our imagina- 
tions hardly a step toward the great result, 
yet it may serve to gratify an innocent and 
laudable curiosity to endeavor, by one and 
another contrivance or illustration, to approx- 
imate toward some feeble conception of the 
earth's magnitude. 

Our preceding sketch, then, has proved the 

surface of this globe to comprise 200,000,000 

of square miles. One square mile is an easy 

conception. In the Western land surveys, it 

38 



EARTH'S SUPERFICIAL DIMENSIONS. 39 

comprises what is termed a section, and con- 
tains six hundred and forty acres — a farm of 
large dimensions. If you have never seen 
such a square of land, yet you have in your 
minds the idea of a mile as it extends along 
the road that passes your home. From your 
house to a certain neighbor's is just about a 
mile, and you have often traveled it, and call 
up in your minds the whole path with its little 
turns, its trees, its ups and downs, and each 
intervening house and brook. You know 
what a mile is. So if there were a square 
plain inclosed by a fence along each of its four 
sides, and each of the four fences were a mile 
long, you could stand by one of these fences 
or over in the center of the great lot, where 
each fence would be a half mile distant, and 
thus receive into your mind a tolerably fair idea 
of the magnitude of one square mile. But if, 
instead of standing in the center of one square 
mile, you should stand in the center of a hund- 
red of such, where each fence at its nearest 
point would be five miles ofi', and, of course, 
scarcely visible, your idea of this one hundred 
square miles would be very imperfect, while 
your comprehension of a thousand of such 



40 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

would be entirely inadequate. What, then, of 
ten hundred thousand, or a million ! What of 
this million multiplied two hundred fold ! Yet 
this is the earth's great surface ! Who can im- 
agine it ? Who can begin to do so ? 

Now let us return to our one square •mile, 
of which we have so perfect an idea. We will 
cross it from one fence to the opposite fence. 
If we walk as fast as men usually walk when 
going to and from their business, we shall cross 
the lot in twenty minutes, and should cross 
three such lots in an hour, and, of course, thirty 
of them in ten hours, by which time we should 
be weary, and we should have walked far 
enough for the day, and would need to rest till 
to-morrow. Now if we should walk on at the 
same rate till we had regularly crossed every 
square mile of the earth's surface, we should 
be more than 18,000 years old before we fin- 
ished the enormous tramp, and should we pro- 
pose to be more particular, and so cross not 
only each square mile, but each acre of this 
vast landscape, at the same rate, we should be 
occupied ten hours every day through 12,000,- 
000 of years. 

Or should we propose for ourselves a more 



EARTH'S SUPERFICIAL DIMENSIONS. 4 1 

speedy and superficial survey of this globe of 
ours, we will suppose ourselves accommodated 
with a comfortable seat about a mile aloft in 
the air, the seat to be stationary while the earth 
under us is turning eastward in its daily revo- 
lution. We will choose a position such that a 
belt of the surface five miles wide shall pass 
under us and by us, until in each twenty-four 
hours every such belt of five miles has been 
successively passed, and been inspected by us 
as it glided onward. Much of the earth, it is 
true, will rush beneath us with a velocity that 
will be frightful to contemplate — houses, trees, 
lakes, rivers, hills, and plains flying eastward 
with double the swiftness of a cannon-ball, and 
we shall need to be wide awake or our observa- 
tions will be superficial indeed. Yet such an 
examination, comprising but the merest glance 
of a moment, will occupy us, in the swift and 
vast survey, every hour, minute, and second of 
more than eight long years. 



VII. 



Eatth^s $aUd Bim^nsians, 




ROM such calculations and imaginings 
let us venture a glance away from the 
surface of this great world, and en- 
deavor to penetrate down amid the unfathom- 
able recesses of its awful bulk. While the 
earth is globular in shape, it is not, like the 
artificial globes in the schools, a hollow and 
empty shell, but is a solid mass, with an aver- 
age weight of about five times that of a globe 
of water of equal dimensions. 

We have seen that while the earth's surface 
comprises 200,000,000 of square miles, its 
mass or bulk comprises 260,000,000,000 of 
cubic or solid miles. Here again, and here 
especially, we are lost, and all human ideas 
and computations are at fault and vain. 
42 



EARTH'S SOLID DIMENSIONS. 43 

We have scarcely more conception of this 
stupendous mass of our earth than has a worm 
on the sides of Mont Blanc of that huge and 
awful eminence. Two hundred and sixty- 
seven thousand millions of sohd miles! Sup- 
pose that, in our imagination, we take out one 
of these solid miles and set it up bodily and in 
shape on some wide-spread plain. What an 
object and what a wonder! A mile along, a 
m.ile through, a mile aloft ! In vastitude what 
is comparable to it among all the works or 
erections of man ? 

The greatest of the Egyptian pyramids has 
a square base of seven hundred and forty six 
feet on a side, covering about thirteen acres, 
and was originally about five hundred feet in 
height, while the weight of this huge structure 
was seven and one-half millions of tons. And 
yet, to erect our supposed edifice of one solid 
mile would require fifteen hundred and twenty- 
five just such pyramids. Were the great pile 
hollow, and divided into stories each ten feet 
in height, and allowing a square yard for each 
person, it would contain within its walls more 
than 1,600,000,000 of people, or a third more 
than all the present inhabitants of the earth. 



44 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Look at it: on a favorable day it could be seen 
a hundred miles away. It is within a few 
hundred feet of the height of Mt. Washing- 
ton, in New Hampshire. Place another solid 
mile upon the top of this, and you have the 
height of Mt. ^tna. Place still another upon 
the top of these, and there looms up the awful 
altitude of Mont Blanc, the loftiest mountain 
of Europe. And yet these are only three out 
of the 260,000,000,000 of just such enormous 
cubes. Now remove the two upper cubes and 
leave the first one as before. It is solid and 
comprises a certain amount of matter — such 
an amount as that to remove this one solid 
mile a distance of twenty miles would require? 
through seventy-five years, 100,000 men and 
200,000 horses. Once more: were this globe 
of ours resting upon another globe precisely 
similar, its weight, in tons, pressing upon the 
other globe would be expressed by the number 
5,842x10^^ that is, 5,842 multiplied by ten 
raised to the eighteenth power, that is, 5,842,- 
000,000,000,000,000,000, or 5,842 millions of 
millions of millions of tons. 

Of this almost infinite weight you and I, of 
course, know nothing. We have no conception 



EARTH'S SOLID DIMENSIONS. 45 

of even a single one million of all this countless 
number of millions. The great mathematician, 
Archimedes, once boasted that if he had a 
place to stand upon separate from the earth 
and independent of it, where he might arrange 
and apply his apparatus, he could move this 
vast globe. But some curious inquirer setting 
himself to investigate the matter, came to the 
conclusion that even were such a feat at all 
within the limits of possibility, some millions of 
years would be consumed in moving the globe 
to the amount of a single inch. How over- 
whelming, then, is the thought of that Omnip- 
otent Being who can take up this immense 
world as a "very little thing;" who upholds it 
"by the word of his power;" who, in the be- 
ginning, hurled it away on its swift and ever- 
lasting flight around its central sun, and who 
causes it to perform an entire revolution upon 
its axis every twenty-four hours ! 



VIII. 



The Earth^s motions. 




jHE closing remarks of my preceding 
sketch allude to the fact that this 
earth, so immeasurably large and 
heavy, and apparently so still and stationary, 
is, however, in motion. As suggested, it has 
two great and principal motions ; one around 
the sun, and the other a rolling motion upon 
its axis, like the revolution of a top. Its mo- 
tion around the sun is of terrible swiftness, 
and one of these revolutions makes our year. 
Being about 95,000,000 of miles from the sun, 
its circuit or orbit around it is more than six 
times that distance, or about 580,000,000 of 
miles. This would be 1,600,000 miles every 
day, about 67,000 miles an hour, and 18J miles 
every second. 
46 



THE EARTH'S MOTIONS. 47 

Think of such an enormous world flying 
through space at so fearful a rate. Could we 
stand off somewhere a thousand miles from 
the earth and see it go by us at that distance, 
what an awfully magnificent spectacle would 
be presented to us ; and who could ever com- 
pute the force that drives the world through 
its great circuit forever ? Where resides that 
force? Only with one Being in all the uni- 
verse, and that same Being has us in his hands 
and sacred keeping from moment to moment, 
and can exert the same power for our loftiest 
happiness. 

But while the earth is thus flying around the 
sun, and thus making our year, it has, at the 
same time, a rolling motion upon its axis, mak- 
ing our day of twenty-four hours. A top 
spinning upon the floor, and at the same time 
circling around the room, well illustrates this 
double motion of our earth. And while its 
motion around the sun, as we have just no- 
ticed, is so terribly swift, this motion upon its 
axis is much less so, but still of greater rapid- 
ity than that of any motion upon its surface; 
for a ball like this great earth can not roll 
sheer over in twenty-four hours without a 



48 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

motion upon the highest portions of its surface 
far swifter than we have ever witnessed. The 
rail-cars under full way go by us at the rate, 
sometimes, of forty miles an hour ; and how 
sublimely swift, then, is their course ! How 
soon they are away in the far distance ! In 
rare instances, their speed is increased to the 
rate of sixty miles an hour, a mile a minute. 
But this is a terrible speed, whether we are 
on board or witnessing it from outside. The 
pigeon's flight is not far from a hundred miles 
an hour, and that of a cannon-ball is probably 
five or six times greater, which, by the earth's 
daily revolving upon its axis, people on and 
near the line of the equator are, every hour, 
borne, by its stupendous rolling, a thousand 
and forty miles eastward, or i/f miles every 
minute, or a mile in less than four seconds. 
Proceeding north or south from the equator 
toward the poles, the circles or parallels be- 
come less, as you will see by looking upon an 
artificial globe ; so that, in rolling over of the 
globe, the people living on these small cir- 
cles traverse, in the twenty-four hours, a less 
distance than those residing on or near the 
equator. At 20° either way from the equator, 



THE EARTH'S MOTIONS. 49 

for example, the circle surrounding the earth 
corresponding to the 20th parallel of latitude, 
instead of being, as at the equator, 25,000 
miles around, is about 23,400 miles. At 30° 
it is 21,600, at 40^ it is 19,080 miles, and at 
50° it is 15,840 miles. Consequently, in the 
daily revolution of the earth upon its axis, 
those living at or near 20° north and south 
latitude, are carried eastward, not at the rate 
of 17! miles a minute as at the equator, but 
16 J miles ; and those living at 30° go 15 miles 
a minute, or a mile in four seconds ; those at 
40^ go 13 J miles a minute, while, up at the 
50th parallel, the velocity per minute is just 11 
miles. So the rate of speed goes on diminish- 
ing toward the poles ; while, if a man shall, 
sometime, stand upon the north pole — and 
there is a man or boy living who will stand 
there — and if he should stand perfectly still 
for twenty-four hours, and not turn to right or 
left, he will not be carried a mile nor an inch 
by the rolling over of the earth, but will sim- 
ply be turned clear around, his face, as the 
globe goes round, turning successively in 
every direction toward the horizon. 

If now you ask how it is that in going, as 



I 



i 



50 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

we do in our latitude, at the amazing velocity 
of about 13 miles a minute, twenty-five or 
twenty-six times faster than the swiftest motion 
of the cars, how it is that we have no percep- 
tion of such motion, two considerations may 
be a satisfactory explanation. First, we are 
borne along on an immense body and with a 
motion exactly uniform, and as perfectly quiet 
as is possible to be conceived. There is not a 
jar, not the least perceivable disturbance from 
year to year or from century to century. Then, 
secondly, the great atmosphere surrounding 
and enveloping the earth, being held to it by 
the force of attraction, revolves with the earth, 
so that the revolving of the latter occasions, 
in most circumstances, not the slightest fric- 
tion between it and its atmosphere. Were 
this otherwise, and the revolving earth re- 
leased from the overhanging atmosphere, and 
rushing through it and by it, and leaving it 
behind, the immediate result would be awful 
in the extreme. It would be the same as if an 
east wind were driving by us westward at the 
rate of a thousand miles an hour, or tenfold 
the force of the wildest and most awful hur- 
ricane ; and in less than an hour's time every 



THE EARTH'S MOTIONS. 5 1 

tree would be uprooted and prostrate, every 
movable thing on the earth's surface would be 
flying in utter confusion through the air, and 
every human being and every animal would be 
swept away as with *'the besom of destruc- 
tion." 

Here, too, then we should not forget to 
make a note of the great Hand that is ever 
near us, the hand of infinite power blended 
with infinite goodness and beneficence. He 
turns over this great world every day, carrying 
us and all things with it, while yet this amaz- 
ing daily revolution goes on with perfect quiet, 
constancy, and safety. Could we witness the 
great and swift revolving without participating 
in it, it would probably be a sight too sublime 
and awful for endurance. Yet, could we bear 
it, doubtless the very first conscious reflection 
would be that the rush of this great world 
upon its axis must be a rush to utter and dire 
destruction. But, amid this enormous whirl 
and this apparent ruin, the infinite One is 
near, and he '' upholdeth " and we are safe. 



IX 



Eatth^s Motions tmpevceptxhU. 



N the preceding sketch I presented 
reasons why the motion of the earth, 
so swift as it is, is not perceptible by 
us who are carried along with it by day and 
night. Some one may ask why, though the 
motion is perfectly without jar or disturb- 
ance, we do not perceive it to be rolling by 
objects that are distant and stationary, as, for 
example, the stars at night. Why do these 
stars, and the sun, and the moon, appear to be 
going by us .if we are moving instead of them ? 
The appearance to every one is that these are 
always drifting westward while we remain sta- 
tionary. This is true, and is one of those 
optical illusions which all have experienced. 
If you can remember the first time you ever 
52 



EARTH'S MOTIONS IMPERCEPTIBLE. 53 

rode in a carriage, you will recollect that the 
trees, though still as ever, seemed to be all 
in motion. Elderly people who had grown 
up before rail-cars began to fly over the 
country, can call up the curious sensation 
when they first intrusted themselves to those 
swift wheels. Looking out through the win- 
dows, it was as if the landscape were flying 
by us, instead of our flying through that ; and 
the hills and trees on land, and the ships away 
on the ocean, appeared combined in a prodig- 
ious race, and we seemed as if dropped down 
in the center of a vast whirl, and all nature 
was rushing, we knew not where. So often, 
even now, while sitting in the cars along-side 
of another train within the depot, and one or 
the other train begins to move slowly away, it 
is not so easy for me to tell which of the trains 
is moving, whether I am gliding one way or 
the neighboring train the opposite way. So 
I suppose it is apt to be of all unusual mo- 
tions, in which we participate. Those who, 
especially at first, venture to ascend in bal- 
loons, realize this illusion to perfection. As- 
cending, it is not that they are rising from the 
earth, but the great earth is sinking down 



54 'I'HE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

from them ; and when far aloft, it is not that 
they are drifting eastward, but the earth, and 
cities, and rivers, are all gliding westward ; 
and being whirled around in their airy car, it is 
not they that are whirling, but the great under- 
lying landscape is rushing round like some 
mighty wheel ; and essaying to descend, it is 
not that they are coming down to the earth, 
but the immense earth, with all that is upon 
its surface, is coming up to where they are. 
And happy for them if the enormous world 
does not come up too swiftly, and give them a 
blow too terrible and deadly ! Indeed, the bal- 
loon in the air is probably as exact and fine an 
illustration of our position in space as is pos- 
sible. The balloon is moving, but appears to 
its passengers to be utterly still — it is running 
before the wind, but no breath is felt, for the 
great silken ball is moving precisely with the 
breeze. So seems this great solid globe as, 
upon its surface, we are borne ever onward. 
The seeming is that we are still, very still, and 
that it is the sun and stars that are on the 
wing. 

I have fancied that a simple experiment 
may, by an effort, dispel for a little moment 



EARTH'S MOTIONS IMPERCEPTIBLE. 55 

this inevitable illusion, and show us a transient 
glimpse of this great earth's motion. You 
will recollect that this globe, by a motion ex- 
actly uniform, performs a perfect revolution of 
360 degrees in twenty-four hours. Of course 
it revolves 15 degrees in one hour, a motion 
too slow to be perceptible. Hence, we do not 
perceive the motions of the stars westward, 
but only that they have been moving, and that 
their places are changed from hour to hour. 
Were they moving westward, instead of 1 5 de- 
grees an hour, about double that number, their 
actual moving would be perceptible, and the 
whole vast starry concave would be seen roll- 
ing very slowly toward the west, as the earth, 
at this rate, would be actually rolling eastward 
upon its axis. And yet by the help of a bright 
and perspicuous mark the motion, as it is, may 
seem to be perceived. Assume, for instance, a 
favorable situation, perhaps an elevated win- 
dow that looks off, without an obstruction, upon 
a smooth, eastern horizon. Take your posi- 
tion just before the full moon is about to rise. 
As it begins to make its appearance, then, by 
a determined mental effort, make it stationary ^ 
and make the great earth move beneath it ; and, 



56 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

if you succeed, you shall, for a moment or two, 
seem to conquer the illusion, and see the great 
and sublime reality — the motion of the earth. 
If any one is pleased to affirm that all this 
is but imaginary, I have only to reply that 
there are imaginings which are identical with 
realities. 




X. 



iHurnal Ejevolution^ 




T was not until recent times that the 
revolution of the earth upon its axis 
was credited as a fact. All mere 
appearaitceSy you know, are against such a 
theory. There seems to be nothing pertaining 
to the earth itself, or to the firmament above us, 
that would indicate such a curious arrangement. 
The earth — is it not steadfast, firmly estab- 
lished, and immovable.^ Is it not as plain as 
any thing we see that the sun literally rises in 
the eastern horizon, and goes down at evening 
in the west t The moon and the stars, also, do 
they not follow the same order } Thus thought 
all the world, through long ages. The great 
world where we live was the center of things, 
and the sun, and moon, and stars, like Jacob, 

57 



58 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

his wife, and sons to Joseph, came and bowed 
down to this central earth, and made obeisance 
to it. Or, more Hterally, they arose upon it, 
circled over it, and set behind it, and passed 
under it, and came again to the place of be- 
ginning. The firmament, as was the seeming, 
was a vast, solid, revolving canopy, bedecked 
with the greater and lesser lights, and passed 
over and around us forever. So it looked — so 
the Bible seemed to teach — so the learned and 
the wise believed. At length, not far from the 
middle of the sixteenth century, Copernicus, a 
German philosopher, having for some time 
doubted the Ptolemaic system of Astronomy, 
which had been in vogue for 2,000 years, and 
which placed the earth in the center of the 
universe, with the sun, moon, and stars revolv- 
ing around it, came, by long and careful study, 
to the clear conviction that the sun, instead of 
the earth, was the true center, and that the 
earth was one of the planets, and, like the 
others, revolved around the great luminary; 
and that the cause of day and night was not 
that the sun really rose and set, but that the 
earth turned regularly upon its axis, thus 
meeting, as it turned, the sun at morning and 



DIURNAL REVOLUTION. 59 

turning away from it at evening. Copernicus 
declined, for a long time, to publish his theory, 
and it was not till the last day of his life that 
his newly published work, in which it was set 
forth and illustrated, was presented to him. 
Shortly afterward, in 1564, Galileo, the Italian 
philosopher and mathematician, was born, who 
also arose to eminence, and became a con- 
firmed convert to the Copernican theory, and 
alleged that the Scriptures, so far as they speak 
of the connection of the sun and the earth, 
were to be understood as speaking popularly 
rather than scientifically ; and thus did not 
contravene the Copernican theory. A formal 
charge was presented against him before the 
Roman Inquisition, and he was compelled to 
recant his teaching of the Copernican theory. 
Accordingly he abjured the doctrine with 
solemn formality, and, clad in sackcloth, and 
kneeling upon his knees, he swore upon the 
Gospels never again to teach that the sun was 
stationary, and that the earth moved. He 
declared his detestation of the heretical opin- 
ions, and promised to perform the prescribed 
penance. Then, rising from his knees, he 
muttered in an undertone, ''It [the earth] does 



60 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

move, for all that /" So absurd is it to attempt 
by compulsion and persecution to change the 
well-settled convictions of the human mind ! 

As, then, the sun is the central and station- 
ary body, and the earth one of the planets re- 
volving around it, it must, in order to the 
beautiful alternation of day and night, such as 
we actually see, turn upon its axis each twenty- 
four hours. Otherwise the same side of the 
earth would be always turned toward the sun, 
and the opposite side be always away from 
it — an arrangement which would condemn our 
globe to utter loneliness and desolation, with- 
out an inhabitant or any green thing — one 
hemisphere a stark, blazing, frightful desert, 
and the other a vast and terrible wilderness, 
bound up in everlasting frosts, and bald, dark, 
and dreadful forever. To prevent so sad a 
result, the great Creator, who is blessed for 
evermore, has given our world its diurnal or 
daily revolution ; and it is remarkable that 
whatever other motions among the planetary 
bodies may be subject to slight perturbations 
or changes, the uniformity and exactness of 
the earth's daily rotation upon its axis is abso- 
lutely perfect. Place anywhere upon the globe 



DIURNAL REVOLUTION. 6 1 

an index pointing exactly to a particular star 
away in the heavens, and if you note the inter- 
val elapsing between the pointing to-night and 
to-morrow night to that same star, you may 
also note that exactly the same interval will 
elapse between any two successive pointings, 
while a long century of years shall pass over 
you. This immense clock, suspended by the 
Almighty Father in the heavens, contrived, 
wound up, and regulated by his own hand, 
varies not a moment from age to age, but, by 
its own calm and stately revolution, measures 
off the years and centuries with absolute ex- 
actitude. What a demonstration is this of the 
existence and perfection of God ! How other- 
wise could such an instance of perfection be 
accounted for.? Here is an effect; and so 
grave, so astonishing, so beautiful and com- 
plete, beyond every finite operation. Was 
there not an operator } and was his power and 
skill less than infinite f 



XI, 




i^^ht. 



|HUS we have day and night. And 
has any one ever, as yet, appreciated 
the excellence of this same arrange- 
ment ? " The evening and the morning were 
the first day ;" and so it has gone on, with- 
out a single interruption, through thousands 
of years. At evening, the part of the earth 
where we dwell rolls away from the sun and 
the latter is hidden from sight ; that is, it sets. 
For a little time, however, it is but just below 
the western horizon, so that it still illuminates 
the atmosphere above, causing what we call 
the twilight. As the earth still rolls further 
away, and the sun, by consequence, is further 
beneath the horizon, the twilight grows less 

and less until it entirely ceases, and then we 
62 



NIGHT. 63 

call it night. The sun and his light are now 
entirely withdrawn, and by the withdrawal of 
this greater Hght, the stars appear ; and if 
the sky is clear of clouds, the stars afford 
some light, so that it is not quite dark through 
all the night. But if the night is cloudy, and 
the clouds are heavy, and the moon is absent, 
the night is very dark, though rarely if ever 
perfectly so. 

But whether clear or cloudy, how sublimely 
interesting is the night-time, and the deep, 
dense, immense shadow that overspreads all 
the world so far as we can discern ! Darkness, 
of itself, is deeply and solemnly impressive ; 
and as, at night, it enshrouds the great land- 
scape in every direction, it is truly awful to con- 
template. We fail to recognize this from its 
perfect familiarity or commonness. We never 
have known any other arrangement. In our 
earliest consciousness it was so. Our infant 
eyes opened and saw the light, and they saw it 
go away and come again from day to day and 
from night to night, and we grew up amid the 
constant and curious alternation, and grew 
familiar with it, and came to know and love 
it we know not when or how, and now even 



64 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the dark night is welcome to us, and in our 
long familiarity we have forgotten that it is 
otherwise than agreeable. Often, indeed, when 
children, out-of-doors alone in the night-time, 
its awfulness would impress us painfully, if not 
frightfully. Even now, as we sometimes, in 
our wakefulness, rise from our beds at "dead 
of night," peer out through the lattice and con- 
template the "shadow of great darkness" that 
is upon the earth, a feeling of awe comes over 
us such as we are not generally conscious of. 
He that would appreciate what the night really 
is, should endeavor to imagine what would be 
his sensations if, after having lived always in 
daylight, he should, for the first time, behold a 
nigh% such as now comes on us daily, settling 
over the world ! Then, indeed, would the 
change be to us such as would be felt. It 
would be a strange occurrence truly, and as 
great and marvelous as strange ; and men 
would think, and talk, and discourse, and print 
about it long afterward. And tidings of the 
amazing shadow would be told to children and 
to children's children, and furnish an impor- 
tant page in history, and travel down through 
long generations. 



NIGHT. 65 

Some such an unusual night actually comes, 
at times, to one and another region of the 
earth. The sun, it is true, is aloft — it may, in 
fact, be high noon when this night comes on. 
It is brief, to be sure. The ''hour of dark- 
ness '' tarries only from one minute to about 
seven minutes at the longest. People call it 
solar eclipse, as we know ; but it is a veritable 
night. It is dark, the sun has set and the 
stars are out, and the domestic fowls seek 
their roosting-places, and the birds of the air 
hush their notes and rest their wings, and the 
kine go lowing homeward to the steading, 
wondering that night has come untimely, and 
people, old and young, forsake their houses, 
and are all of them abroad in the streets and 
fields to look on this brief but extraordinary 
night, and see this huge yet transient shadow 
come and go. This is al] well, and natural, 
and proper. At the same time, we may well 
ask, what is the setting of the sun behind the 
earth.? this darkness of two or three minutes 
to the darkness of long hours ? To us the 
shadow of the moon is strange and greatly 
noticeable; that of the earth, though vastly 
greater and larger, and of longer continuance, 

5 



66 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

is, however, a daily event, and therefore unap- 
preciated. 

But sometimes in the dark night we bethink 
ourselves of what would be if it should con- 
tinue, and day should delay to return. In 
such an awful contingency night would begin 
to assume an aspect inconceivably awful and 
dreadful. 

" I had a dream, which was not all a dream. 
The bright sun was extinguished, and the stars 
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, 
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth 
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; 
Morn came and went — and came and brought no day. 
And men forgot their passions in the dread 
Of this their desolation ; and all hearts 
Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light." 

But fear not. The earth that in the west 
rolled upward last evening, is still rolling 
calmly, and swiftly, and surely ; and we who, 
a few hours ago, lost sight of the sun behind 
us, are hastening around to meet him again in 
front ; and already arises another twilight in 
the eastern instead of the western sky, and it 
is growing brighter and brighter, and there ap- 
pears the sun again, and the earth, as it rolls 
on, is already setting beneath the magnificent 
orb of day. 



£iM>^^ 



XII. 



Uaij* 



F the nights on this earth are so in- 
teresting and subUme, what shall be 
said of the day? It is early morn; 
let us rise and dress and issue forth abroad 
and look and listen. Perhaps it is near the 
Summer solstice. If so, we were aroused from 
slumber by the "sweet notes of earliest birds," 
breathing their little artless songs from a thou- 
sand tree-tops, and making vocal the surround- 
ing landscape. The air is balmy, and gentle 
zephyrs are breathing from the deep pure 
cisterng of the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the 
dawn is clear and full, and spngeds itself along ^ti^cu^i 
the eastern heavens, reaching almost from pole 
to pole. There now comes the sun, at first "a 
little line of insufferable brightness which, 

67 



68 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

before I can write- these few words, has in- 
creased to half an orb, and now a whole one," 
and the wide world is illuminated, and, under 
the genial radiance of the morning sunshine, 
lies enrobed with beauty. "The manifestations 
of the power of God," said Daniel Webster, 
" like his mercies, are * new every morning,' and 
fresh every evening. We see as fine risings of 
the sun as ever Adam saw, and its risings are 
as much a miracle now as they were in his 
day, and, I think, a good deal more, because it 
is now a part of the miracle that for thousands 
and thousands of years he has come to his 
appointed time without the variation of a mill- 
ionth part of a second. Adam could not tell 
how this might be. I know the morning, I am 
acquainted with it, and love it ; I love it fresh 
and sweet as it is — a daily new creation break- 
ing forth, and calling all that have life, and 
breath, and being to new adoration, new enjoy- 
ments, and new gratitude." 

Onward and upward' the great warm sun 
pursues his way, reaching, at length, his south- 
ern summit, and the day is perfected. How 
different these underlying lands, and streams, 
and forests from what they were only last 



DAY. 69 

midnight! What a new, bright world has the 
day so suddenly brought forth ! How strangely 
has that pall of darkness, so deep and im- 
mense, been lifted all away, and how blue and 
pure these skies, in whose vast concave those 
clouds are gently drifting as when sunlit sails 
are wafting afar over the Summer sea! On go 
the pleasant hours, and day is waning. The 
sun is now hanging in the western firmament, 
and hastens presently to his "golden rest." 
What magnificent hours have passed over the 
world as this mighty sun was circling through 
the heavens ! It was the luminous, sprightly 
reign of Day ; and along his brilliant realms 
Industry was plying her energies — great enter- 
prises were planning, city streets were swarm- 
ing with life, and gay with animation and 
beauty, and country landscapes were joyous 
with far-reaching ^meadows, golden harvests, 
waving forests, blushing flowers, silver streams, 
and all nature's splendid garniture. 

Thus the night and thus the day, and while 
so extremely opposite and diverse, how pleas- 
ant as well as necessary their constant al- 
ternation ! We hinted at how dreadful night 
would be if, in the midst of it, no morning 



70 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

were forthcoming. And constituted as are 
ourselves and our dwelling-place, how weari- 
some and ruinous would be incessant day! 
That great sun always above us, and always 
beaming down upon us, instead of being a 
friend, would become a terrible enemy ; and, as 
suggested in a former letter, would soon trans- 
form our earthly dwelling-place into a scene 
of desolation. All the beautiful influences of 
night upon the animal and vegetable world 
would be lacking, and its friendly shadow, so 
helpful to quiet stillness and peaceful and re- 
freshing sleep, would never come to infold us 
in its soft arms and bless us. Incessant sun- 
shine and intense heat would speedily generate 
mortal sickness, and we should look up in our 
desolate weariness, and long for night with its 
cool shadows and the music of its reviving 
breezes. 




XIII. 



The Reasons* 




jHE revolution of the earth upon its 
axis produces, as we have seen, the 
alternation of day and night, but does 
not explain the different Seasoits^ as Spring, 
Summer, Autumn, and Winter. A simple ar- 
rangement produces this result, while yet it is 
difficult of explanation without the aid of an 
orrery representing the sun and earth in their 
respective positions relative to each other. 

Suffice it to say that the phenomenon of 
change of seasons proceeds from two astro- 
nomical facts combined ; namely, the revolution 
of the earth around the sun, which makes the 
year, joined with the fact that the earth, in 
performing this great round, has its North 
Pole always directed to the same point in the 

71 



^2 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

heavens — this point being very near the North 
Star. The North Pole being always thus di- 
rected, the earth's axis, instead of being per- 
pendicular to its path in space, or upright, 
leans away from such perpendicular about 23J 
degrees, so that, at a certain season of the 
year — the Summer season — the sun shines 
upon the North Pole and beyond it, while the 
South Pole is in darkness. In our Winter 
time, on the other hand, and when the earth is 
on the opposite side of the sun, the latter 
shines upon the South Pole, while the North 
Pole is in darkness. Meantime we dwellers in 
the temperate zone, occupying an intermedi- 
ate position between the pole and the equator, 
experience a gradual transition from Summer 
to Winter which we call AMtumn, and another 
from Winter to Summer which we call Spring, 
and thus we have four annual seasons dis- 
tinctly marked. 

And this variety of seasons is one of the 
deeply interesting phenomena belonging to our 
earth, and is doubtless designed by the Creator 
to constitute one of its capital attractions and 
delights. Spring, for example, has a charm 
which can be felt but never described ; and 



THE SEASONS. 73 

few memories of our hearts are so beautiful as 
those of the Spring-time of our early years. 
And even in later life, the giving way of stern 
Winter and the sweet breath of approaching 
Spring are more than welcome to us. It is 
not an unnatural suspicion that the present 
arrangement of the earth began with this- 
lovely season, and it is quite likely that those 
first "evenings and mornings'* were vernal 
ones, fragrant as they were with new-born 
flowers and young and gorgeous foliage, and 
the new up-springing of the tender grass over 
the graceful meadow lands, and amid the 
whispering groves of paradise. 

This blooming season is the bright emblem 
of the glad months and years now passing 
over my youthful readers. You are amid life's 
happy Spring-time, and its freshness and blos- 
soming are upon you; while, if good and 
true, these morning days of yours are the fair 
promises of still happier years. 

Nor is it less interesting when the Spring 
season melts away into the glories of Summer, 
Those suns, how gorgeous are they ; and 
goodly are the maturing foliage, the waving 
grain, the ripening harvests, the earth' all 



74 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

fruitful beneath, and the skies all blue and 
brilliant above! And then glance at that 
dark belt stretching far along the western ho- 
rizon, and listen to the rumbling of the dis- 
tant thunder, and note the firmament wild 
with clouds, and the trees all suddenly surging 
hither and thither by the rushing blast — fore- 
runner of the mighty shower now drenching 
the thirsty landscape. And then, anon, the 
retiring storm-cloud is seen lying off darkly 
upon the eastern sky, still fraught with light- 
nings and vocal with thunders, while upon it 
hangs the "glorious bow," the magnificent 
pledge that storms are gone, and that genial 
sunshine is returning to gild and beautify the 
rejoicing world. 

And whose heart is not glad at the coming 
on of the grand Autumnal days ; when Sum- 
mer heats have passed by, and cooler airs glide 
over the landscape, and bright September days 
are here, and blissful October with its ripening 
fruits and balmy atmosphere, and crimson and 
golden forests decorating the landscape, as if 
a vast and magnificent flower-garden were 
spreading itself far away toward the distant 
horizon ! 



THE SEASONS. 75 

Winter^ it is true, has its snows, and clouds, 
and storms, and cold, and shortened days, and 
lengthened nights. Yet this somber season, 
too, has its comforts and even its charms, 
its sublime scenery, and its instructive lessons. 
Artificial heat creates a little Summer within 
our dwellings — schools open their doors for 
the young, while the Winter season and its 
associations are more favorable to study and 
intellectual progress than other months, and 
the long evenings invite to useful books, 
pleasant converse, and innocent recreations ; 
and then refreshing and healthful sleep pre- 
pares us to welcome the late-coming sunrise. 
Even the whitened and ice-bound landscape, 
with its naked trees and drifting snows, and 
all its wild and desolate aspect, is irradiated 
with blissful hope and promise. For as from 
our comfortable dwellings we gaze abroad over 
this Wintery desert, delightful visions pass be- U/^^^>^ 
fore us of all this desolation being lifted off 
and dissipated, and these same fields and past- 
ures presently putting on their flowery and 
fragrant robes once more, while every chilling 
sight and scene shall pass away, and "all 
things become new." 



XIV. 



(March 20 — September 21.) 




lAVING written of the different sea- 
sons, let us glance at four important 
eras of the year which may, in fact, be 
said to introduce the seasons. These eras are 
the two Equinoxes^ and the two Solstices, We 
will first notice the Equinoxes. The term 
Equinox comes from a combination of the 
two Latin words equus, equal, and nox^ night ; 
and hence it means equal nighty and is accom- 
panied, of course, by equal day. 

Astronomers imagine two great circles in 
the heavens, and surrounding the earth ; one 
directly over the earth's equator, which they 
denominate the Celestial Equator^ and cross- 
ing this at two opposite points another great 
1^ 



EQUINOXES. jy 

circle termed the Ecliptic, This latter circle is 
the path which the sun appears to traverse, 
not in his daily circuit, but in his annual 
course. Now, these two circles cross each 
other at an angle of twenty-three and a half 
degrees ; and the sun, in his yearly round, 
will reach, of course, one of these crossings 
or junctions; and six months, or half a year, 
afterward he will come to the other. Thus he 
crosses the equator twice a year at nearly 
equal intervals — the times of crossing being 
the 20th of March and about the 21st of 
September. 

At these two periods, the sun, being directly 
over the earth's equator, shines over the entire 
globe from pole to pole, so that on the precise 
equinoctial day of twenty-four hours, every 
square mile of the earth, as it rolls over from 
west to east, is illuminated by the sun's rays. 
So, also, in this particular twenty-four hours, 
the day and night are equal over all that por- 
tion of the earth where the sun, on that day,, 
rises and sets ; that is, every-where except at 
and near the North and South Poles. At 
these two localities, on the equinoctial day, the 
sun neither rises nor sets, but would be seen 



78 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

directly in the horizon, one-half of it visible 
above the line, while the other half would be 
below the line, and invisible. In this position, 
during the equinoctial twenty-four hours, it 
would be seen circling around the entire hori- 
zon, neither rising nor sinking. A few, say 
ten, degrees south from the North Pole, the 
equinoctial sun, to a man who might be stand- 
ing on our meridian, would be seen rising at 
the moment of its rising with us; that is, at 
six o'clock, and precisely in the east. But, 
instead of mounting promptly up the sky, he 
would, through all the morning hours, still 
be creeping near the horizon southward, and 
ascending but slightly, like as the careful boy 
in his first attempts at swimming, hugs the 
shore, fearful to strike out with his more 
skilled and bold companions into the deep, 
broad stream. Thus, at high noon, and after 
six hours upon his course, he would be seen 
lying in the far south, still only ten degrees — 
within a hand's-breadth — above the horizon, 
whence, for the next succeeding six hours, he 
would go circling down the western horizon, 
still gradually sinking, till, coming to the exact 
west, he will disappear. But it will be but a 



EQUINOXES. 79 

bare disappearance. All night long — a night 
of just twelve hours — he will be hugging the 
horizon, though beneath it, and the man up 
there at eighty degrees, if he please to watch, 
may track the sun throughout the night by 
the twilight halo which he will bear with him 
to and from the far north, as he goes circling 
the pole. Another man, standing, that morn- 
ing, upon the equator, will also behold the sun 
come up in the precise east. But instead of 
coursing away toward the south, he will make 
a sheer ascent upward, at right angles with the 
horizon, and, at the hour of noon, will be ex- 
actly in the zenith, and his rays will shoot 
vertically down to the earth, and this equi- 
noctial man,, as he walks hither and thither, 
will bear with him no shadow, and on every 
spare foot of land or water around him Sol's 
burning rays will fall with their maximum of 
intensity and strength. 




XV. 



Summer ^oIsUj:!^* 

(June 22.) 




IHE word Solstice comes from two 
Latin words, Sol^ sun, and sto, to 
stand ; and means that the sun 
stands; that is, makes no further progress 
north or south. There are two of these 
points, one north, the utmost limit of the 
sun*s course north ; and the other south, 
the utmost Hmit of his course south. These 
two points are called solstitial points ; and 
the "sun reaches the northern one to-day, 
June 22d ; and hence, this, theoretically, is 
the longest day of the year. "Theoretically," 
we say ; because there is just now, as the al- 
manacs show us, little or no difference of the 

day's length, for several successive days. If, 
80 



SUMMER SOLSTICE. 8 1 

for example, the sun reaches the solstitial 
point this day, there will, however, be but the 
slightest difference between the length of to- 
day and that of yesterday, and also that of 
to-morrow. This may be illustrated to some 
bright boy by supposing his hoop, which some- 
times bounces against us on the sidewalk, to 
be notched into 360 equal parts ; and as the 
hoop should rest upon the ground, and its top 
be made to lean toward him, a fly should be 
seen passing, with a uniform motion, over the 
circumference. As the fly should come up to 
the top of the hoop, and pass over a few 
spaces nearest to the observing boy, he would 
discern no difference in the fly's horizontal 
progress from right to left. Such is the pict- 
ure of these passing days. But, still watching 
our fly after he passes over thirty or forty 
spaces, and as he is now descending the hoop, 
although traveling just as fast as before, yet 
his horizontal progress is decidedly less as he 
advances from notch to notch. Thus he is 
picturing to us the philosophy of the shortened 
days, which shortening will be so perceptible 
a few weeks hence. The sun will then be no 

longer solstitial, or apparently stationary, but 

6 



82 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

will be seen to travel a less distance from ris- 
ing to setting. 

The solstitial, or longest day is, with us, not 
far from fifteen hours long; and the farther 
north we go toward the Arctic Circle, the 
longer the day. Up at Stockholm and St. 
Petersburg, eighteen or nineteen degrees far- 
ther north than Chicago and Boston, the sun, 
to-day, will be eighteen and a half hours above 
the horizon. Consequently, this night in those 
cities will be but five and a half hours in 
length — the sun setting there about a quarter 
past nine o'clock, and rising a quarter before 
three. Also, by reason of the great obliquity 
of the sun's path, he will dip, at setting, but 
slightly beneath the horizon. So that the 
twilight will be visible during most of the 
brief night. 

A few degrees north of Stockholm, near the 
head of the Gulf of Bothnia, is a hill from whose 
summit the sun, to-night, will not disappear 
at all, but will be seen se tting gradually from 
the western skies apparently nearer and nearer 
the horizon as it approaches the due northern 
point, when it will seem just to touch the 
earth, and then, as it passes the rocky point, 



SUMMER SOLSTICE. 83 

it will begin to ascend again eastward on its 
long circuit of twenty-four hours. To the 
spectator upon that hill, Phoebus will seem to 
take no rest to-night. And many a spectator 
will be there to witness that great sight ; for it 
is one that fails not to attract annual steam- 
boat excursions up the Bothnia from Stock- 
holm and other places. By proceeding a few 
miles further north, the excursionists might 
view the same spectacle without ascending 
any hill ; while should they journey to Ekon- 
tikos, about 200 miles above the head of the 
Gulf, they might enjoy a sunshine of three en- 
tire weeks, uninterrupted of sunsets — the sun, 
each twenty-fours, careering all around them — 
always in sight, and always rejoicing like a 
strong man to run a race. They would see 
him passing eastward and upward from our 
midnight to morning, southward and still up- 
ward till noon, westward and downward in the 
afternoon hours, and northward and still down- 
ward to the " place of beginning," a little dis- 
tance above the northern horizon. 

Meanwhile, far away southward, along Pata- 
gonian pampas and forests, there reigns, on 
this our solstitial day, stern and relentless 



84 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Winter. And peering out from their gloomy 
huts, the dwellers there behold, lying off in 
the northern skies, the Winter sun traversing 
speedily his low, brief race, then disappearing 
through the long and dreary night. 

But let these be of good cheer ! To-day the 
sun starts away on his southern tour; and, at 
next Christmas-time, the tables will be turned, 
and the long nights, and Winter winds, and 
clouds, and storms, will be ours while the 
sunny and late-lingering day, and joyous birds, 
and brilliant flowers, and ripening harvests, 
will come to cheer the denizens of the South. 

" Great and marvelous are thy works ! 
In wisdom hast thou made them all." 




XVI. 



Wmtet Solstii:!^. 

(December 22.) 




^OU will perceive that I have again 
dated my sketch. In the preceding 
one, I noticed the situation of the 
earth and sun in relation to each other, as 
their situation was just six months ago. Let 
us see how matters are now. The earth has 
gone half around its great orbit, and we are on 
the side of the sun precisely opposite to that 
where we were one^half a year since, and 190,- 
000,000 of miles distant. And as the North 
Pole was then turned toward the sun^ and as its 
direction never changes except very slightly, 
so now the same North Pole is turned away 
from the sun and the South Pole is toward it. 
Now notice the sunshine as it rests upon the 

85 



86 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

earth. First, it shines fully upon the South 
Pole, and beyond it, all the time, and the roll- 
ing of the earth upon its axis does not hide the 
sun from this part of the earth through all the 
twenty-four hours. The sun continues to shine 
there just the same as if the earth were held 
perfectly still in that same position in respect 
to the sun. On, and a little space around the 
South Pole, the sun has been shining now for 
three months, ever since the 2ist of Septem- 
ber; and he will continue to shine there for 
three months more, or until the 20th of March. 
To-day, and for several days about this time, 
the sun shines all the twenty-four hours as far 
as to a line 23 J degrees from the South Pole. 
This line you will notice as a dotted line on 
the map of the world, and it is called the Ant- 
arctic Circle. Then passing your finger up 
the map toward the north, you will notice a 
similar dotted line 23J degrees from the North 
Pole. 

Now for the appearance of things on the 
earth on this 22d day of December. Begin- 
ning at the South Pole it is, as we have said, 
all sunshine, and has been for three months, 
and wiH be three nionths more. To-day, 



WINTER SOLSTICE. 87 

the sun at the South Pole is at its highest 
point — that is, it is 23I degrees above the ho- 
rizon, and will for the next twenty-four hours 
continue there, jieither rising nor perceptibly 
sinking. Instead of this apparent motion, it 
will seem to go entirely around the world 
parallel to the horizon, and if a man should 
stand still upon the South Pole for twenty-four 
hours, beginning this morning, he would ob- 
serve the sun first directly before him, 2^^ de- 
grees up ; six hours afterward, over his right 
shoulder at the same height ; at six hours more, 
at the same height directly behind him ; at the 
end of the next six hours, it would be at the 
same height over his left shoulder, and at the 
end of the twenty-four hours, it would, with- 
out any apparent sinking or rising, have come 
round in front of him again. Thus, for the 
three coming months, from this 22d day of De- 
cember till March 22d, the sun, at the South 
Pole, will appear to be passing round and round, 
very gradually nearing the earth, until, at about 
the ninetieth round, it will have dipped half be- 
neath the horizon, and in that situation, though 
slowly sinking, it will encircle the whole earth. 
Then, after another circling or two of twenty- 



88 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

four hours, it will entirely disappear, and will 
be seen no more from March till September 
2 1 St. Come now from the South Pole 23 J de- 
grees to the antarctic circle. How is the sun- 
shine here on this 22d of December.^ At 
noon the sun is, of course, in the north, and 
47 degrees above the horizon ; at 6, P. M., it 
is in the west 23 J degrees above the earth ; 
at midnight, it lies exactly at the south and in 
the horizon, half of it being visible ; at 6, A. 
M., it is in the east, nearly 23 J degrees up, hav- 
ing ascended thither since midnight, and with- 
out setting ; at noon it is in the north again, 
at the place of beginning. 

If, now, we please to transport ourselves 
away to the arctic circle, the condition of 
things will be exactly reversed, that is, the sun 
at noon will be half of it visible in the south- 
ern horizon — visible a few moments, and all the 
rest of the twenty-four hours will be night. At 
the North Pole, the sun will have been three 
months out of sight, and all this day will be 
23^ degrees below the horizon ; and though it 
will begin to ascend from to-day, yet it will not 
make its appearance until the 22d of next 
March. 



XVII. 



omjes^ 




E have thus attempted to picture the 
scenery within the polar circles north 
and south, as the earth pursues its 
annual circuit around the sun. These dismal 
portions of the globe are denominated the 
Frigid Zones^ and they are rightly named. 
They are realms of eternal frosts and snows, 
while, at the two poles, and for a consider- 
able space around them, they have only one 
day and night in the year, each being six 
months in duration. 

Thus you have noticed the two polar circles 
called, upon the maps — the northern, the 
Arctic, and the southern, the A^itarctic circles. 
Now, with your eye upon the arctic circle, 
move it down the map of the world to within 



90 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

23J degrees of the equator, and you will notice 
another dotted circle, and at the same distance 
below the equator another similar one. These 
two circles, as you know, are called Tropics ; 
the northern one, the tropic of Cancer^ and the 
southern, the tropic of Caprico7it, Glancing 
at the space on the map between these two 
tropical circles, and you have what is called 
the Torrid Zone^ also rightly named, as it is 
the warmest region of the globe. Then glanc- 
ing at the two spaces, one between the tropic 
of Cancer and the north polar circle, and the 
space between the tropic of Capricorn and the 
south polar circle, you see the two Temperate 
Zones — the former called the north temperate, 
and the latter, the south temperate. These, 
likewise, are properly named, from the fact 
that their average temperature is a medium 
between the cold of the frigid zones and the 
heat of the torrid zone. 

Thus the earth is divided into five belts, 
zones, or divisions ; and these are natural di- 
visions rather than artificial. The torrid belt 
or zone, for example, comprises all that portion 
of the earth's surface, over which the sun is 
perpendicular, or in the zenith, twice a year, 



ZONES. 91 

and outside of which, whether north or south, 
it is never in the zenith. The two temperate 
zones comprise all that portion of the earth's 
surface upon which, while the sun shines ob- 
liquely, yet has the alternation of day and 
night, both comprising twenty-four hours. 
The frigid zones are those regions where a 
day or a night may be each from twenty-four 
hours to six months in length. 

These last, as we have seen, are cold and 
dismal regions of the earth, having few human 
inhabitants, and those ranking low in the scale 
of intellectual or moral worth. On the other 
hand, the torrid zone, lying almost directly be- 
neath the sun, and every point of it being 
exactly beneath it every six monthS;^. is the 
warmest region of the earth. Here no Winter 
ever comes, while there is little that resembles 
Spring and Autumn ; but an everlasting Sum- 
mer lords it over these immense regions of the 
globe. Here, of course, vegetation attains the 
greatest growth and perfection, and here is the 
home of the largest and mightiest of wild 
beasts, birds, and reptiles. Man, too, is here ; 
but the enervating influence of the hot climate, 
joined with the little necessity of labor for 



92 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

subsistence, renders him indolent and com- 
paratively weak, effeminate, and inefficient. 

Glancing at the two temperate zones, the 
south temperate is at once seen to embrace 
but a very small portion of landed surface. 
The southern points of South America and 
Africa, and the southern half of Australia, 
together with a few smaller islands, are all. 
The north temperate zone, on the contrary, 
embraces nearly all of North America, Europe, 
and Asia, and Northern Africa. This zone, 
therefore, is the important and main portion 
of this world of ours. Were this, with its 
people, to be annihilated or overwhelmed with 
water, Uttle would be left that would be worth 
an existence. Here are the genius, learning, 
enterprise, industry, talent, wealth, happiness, 
and hope of the world, and ever have been, 
and will be. 

And here it is that a great and beneficent 
Providence has placed my y£)ung readers and 
me. It was utterly beyond our control that 
we were born and reared somewhere along the 
most favorable belt of the earth's surface. At 
the same time of our birth, thousands of other 
children entered on existence, some in the 



I 



ZONES. 93 

depths of Africa and other torrid lands, and 
others in the far north among the wild Kam- 
schatdales and Esquimaux, and they grew up 
amid moral darkness — will live low, and use- 
less, and hopeless lives, and die "without the 
sight" of Jesus and his cross. Is it better, 
infinitely better with us ? Who, then, ordered 
our earthly habitation ? Whose glorious hand 
was it that placed us in the midst of the best 
of all lands, as He said to us, "This is thy 
dwelling place — thine arena of large benefi- 
cence — thy stepping-stone to life eternal !" 



XVIII. 



igontin^nts^ 




E have thus far noticed the shape, 
superficies, weight, motions, and dif- 
ferent seasons of the earth — let us 
now look at the great world in some of its 
more familiar aspects. 

Its first obvious aspect is its division into 
land and water. We hinted, in a former letter, 
that, at the creation, as described by Moses, 
the whole globe seems to have been covered 
by water. He pictures to us the creative 
work of the third day as thus : " And God 
said. Let the waters under the heavens be 
gathered together into one place, and let the 
dry land appear, and it was so. And God 
called the dry land Earth, and the gathering 
together of the waters called he Seas!' And 
94 



CONTINENTS. 95 

these are the two great natural divisions of 
the globe. 

Let us contemplate the land division. And 
here, one of the first things that attract our 
attention is the small proportion of land com- 
pared to the water. As, at the creation, the 
waters subsided and left the land exposed, 
their subsidence ceased when only about a 
fourth of earth's solid surface was uncovered. 
To a vision that was capable of contemplating 
the divine operations, on that third day of 
the creation, it must have been a sublime 
scene indeed. The retiring or settling of the 
waters was probably quiet and gradual. The 
mountain-tops became first visible, and as 
the waters settled toward their bases, they 
loomed up as islands huge and bald. Then 
the wide-spreading continents slowly came 
into view, and the numberless islands, great 
and small, until the vast waters stayed forever. 
Then the earth was land and water much as 
it is now, but the land was merely such. 
Throughout its whole great extent, it was an 
absolute desert. Not a tree or shrub, nor a 
blade of grass was there. No green thing 
as yet appeared, but it was one bare, bald, 



96 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

desolate scene over continent and sea, and 
from pole to pole. The canvas was indeed 
stretched forth, but nothing more ; it was 
placed in readiness and waiting for the picture, 
and then said the great Artist, " Let the earth 
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and 
the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, 
whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it 
was so. And God saw that it was good." 

We have noticed how the land was curiously 
proportioned to the water, and we may add 
that its distribution was equally curious. It 
would have seemed likely to us that the dis- 
tribution of the land would be somewhat equal 
on the several sides of the immense ball. But 
this is far from being the fact. For if you 
should divide the globe into two equal parts 
by a line passing through the North and South 
Poles and crossing the island of Iceland near 
the southern coast of Greenland, you would 
have on one side of the line all Africa, Europe, 
and almost all Asia, and the whole great island 
of Australia, and the neighboring large islands, 
while on the other side of the line will be only 
the continent of North and South America, 
Greenland, and a little corner of Asia. Thus 



I 



CONTINENTS. 97 

the number of square miles of land in the 
American or Western hemisphere of the globe 
is only about 15,000,000, while the square 
miles, in the opposite or Eastern hemisphere 
is not far from 50,000,000 — more than three 
times the extent of the land of the Western 
hemisphere. Why this great disproportion 
between these two halves of the earth, is 
one of the questions which philosophy fails to 
answer. 

There is something curious, also, in the gen- 
eral contour or shape of the several great land 
divisions of the globe. If you place before you 
a map of the world on Mercator's projection, 
you will observe that all these divisions are 
wide on the northern sides, and that they have 
a tapering tendency southward until the most 
of them terminate in the ocean. Thus Green- 
land and North and South America in the 
Western hemisphere, and Africa and the sev- 
eral countries of South Asia, as Arabia, Hin- 
dostan, and Siam. For the explanation of 
this peculiarity, so far as any has been prof- 
fered us, we must refer you to writers on the 
geological phenomena of the globe. 

It will be observed, further, that the great 
7 



98 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. I 

land divisions of the world are thickly and 
often deeply indented with water in the shape 
of seas, gulfs, bays, inlets, etc. This might 
have been so, to a greater or less extent, when, 
on the third day of the creation, the waters 
subsided from a portion of the solid parts of 
the globe, while it is an undoubted fact, how- 
ever, that many of these indentations have 
been greatly extended by the constant action 
and force of the water operating through a 
long course of ages. Nor is it at all unlikely 
that by this same process of the ocean waters 
very decided changes have been wrought in 
the character of some or all of the great con- 
tinents. Probably, for example, the narrow 
isthmus joining North and South America, 
now averaging only about forty miles of width, 
was once very much broader, so much so that 
the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea had 
no existence, and Cuba and the other West J 
India Islands, instead of being islands as now, 
were a part of the solid continent. So the 
Asiatic continent once very probably included 
Australia and the whole archipelago between 
it and the present southern coast of Asia. 
And Africa, it is likely, was once joined to 



CONTINENTS. gg 

Europe, as it is now joined to Asia, while the 
present Strait of Gibraltar was an isthmus, and 
the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Black seas 
were inland lakes. 

And here, too, my young friends must not 
be unmindful of the excellent working of our 
Heavenly Father's hand. These numerous 
indentations, by the ocean, of the great conti- 
nental coasts, furnish abundant harbors for 
shipping, and for the important operations of 
commerce ; and these operations and facilities 
would be greatly curtailed but for the arrange- 
ment we are contemplating. Take a common 
map of the United States, for example, and 
compare the thickly indented coasts of Maine 
with the smooth, bald coasts of South Caro- 
lina and Florida, and consider how much 
nearer perfection for commercial purposes is 
the former coast than are the two latter. Com- 
pare, also, the entire Hne of coast, from New 
Brunswick to the Chesapeake, with the oppo- 
site Pacific coast in the same latitude. 



XIX. 



B ce^ns. 




ROM the general view of the land 
surface of the globe, let us turn to 
notice briefly the ocean of waters. 
The ocean surface, as we have seen, monop- 
olizes nearly three-fourths of the whole, and 
forms, in fact, but one body, being partially 
separated into different parts, to which, for 
convenience, we attach different names, as 
Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Northern, and South- 
ern oceans. This boundless expanse of water 
extends east and west entirely around the 
globe, and also from pole 'to pole ; and the 
Eastern and Western continents are, both of 
them, huge islands reposing amid this vast 
waste of waters. Our globe, as to its surface, 
is a world of waters, while the landed surface 

100 



OCEANS. 10 1 

is quite a subordinate quantity. The waters 
are the globe, the land being spots scattered 
here and there upon the face of the intermi- 
nable sea. There are positions away from the 
earth where an eye that could take in the 
whole hemisphere nearest to it would, out of 
twenty equal parts of the surface, see one 
part land and the other nineteen parts water. 
Afar off in the opposite direction, and where 
the other hemisphere would be wholly in view, 
the entire of the great continents would be 
seen except the southern parts of South 
America, while, except this portion and the 
southernmost points of Asia, the whole conti- 
nental world would appear broadly surrounded 
by water including a great mediterranean ocean 
(the Atlantic) nearly as spacious as the whole 
continental surface. 

Here, again, the why comes in, and again 
we are unable to answer. We know enough 
to be assured that the ocean is good and use- 
ful, but why it is best that it should be so ex- 
tensive, so predominant, on this planet, I am 
not clear, nor, perhaps, is any one else ; and in 
the presence of such an inquiry, as of a multi- 
tude of others, we can only take shelter under 



102 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the one and all-sufficient axiom that *^ He doeth 
all things well," and arranges nothing vainly, 
whether in the correct adjustment of land and 
water, or any other conceivable or inconceiv- 
able thing. 

Some facts touching this great ocean world 
are interesting. In the first place, it is, and 
probably every-where, affected by currents, 
running in different directions. Sometimes a 
current upon the surface fiows in one direction, 
while beneath this same current fiows another 
in a direction precisely opposite. These cur- 
rents exert an infiuence to preserve the quality 
of the sea water all uniform over the globe, 
and they serve, also, to modify the climates of 
different countries, rendering some of these 
warmer and others colder than they would 
otherwise be. In the second place, the ocean 
is salt. Whence this saltness is not clearly un- 
derstood. It may be derived from geological 
formations with which the waters come in con- 
tact, or it may not. But whatever its source, 
there is reason for believing that the saltness of 
the ocean has a salutary infiuence upon the cli- 
mates of the world, and this may be one of ^the 
reasons why this saline quality is made one of 




THE OCEAN. 



OCEANS. 103 

the characteristics of the ocean, as well as for 
the ocean's predominating extent upon the 
globe. 

In the third place, the ocean is the sole 
fountain of all other water upon the earth, as 
rivers, lakes, springs, and reservoirs, and all the 
moisture of the earth, without which it would 
be utterly barren in respect to every green 
thing, and be spread forth an entire and 
uninhabitable waste. From the ocean's far- 
extended surface is drawn up by the daily sun 
abundant watery vapors, which are borne by 
the winds over the continents in the shape of 
clouds. From these come the frequent rains 
that water the earth, and a portion of which, 
sinking through the soil, becomes the supply 
of springs and fountains, while another portion 
of the fallen waters flows off over the surface, 
forming rills, and brooks, and rivulets, and 
rivers, that empty their waters again into the 
ocean, whence they originally came. Nor is it 
for us to say that the ocean, immense as it is, 
is any too capacious for the great purposes of 
evaporation and its salutary influences upon 
earth and atmosphere. 

Then, fourthl}^, the ocean serves as the great 



I04 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

highway of nations, and is the grand medium 
of commerce between countries far separated 
from each other. Thus what might seem, and 
once did seem, an impassable barrier between 
these countries, becomes, in fact, a most facile 
pathway of communication and commerce, and 
far superior to such communication by roads 
upon solid land. A common steamship, for 
example, will carry from New York to Liver- 
pool or Havre a thousand tons of merchandise 
in twelve days. The same amount trans- 
ported the same distance by land, would re- 
quire five hundred wagons, and so many men, 
and two thousand horses, while the time re- 
quired for such a journey would be, at least, 
one hundred days. 

The average depth of this great ocean of 
waters is judged to be not far from two miles. 
What is its greatest depth is not known, and 
probably never will be. Beyond a certain 
depth, it is exceedingly difficult, and perhaps 
impossible, to effect soundings. Various con- 
trivances have been invented for making deep- 
sea soundings, and great depths have been 
reached and ascertained. A region of the 
Atlantic lying south-east of Newfoundland, 



OCEANS. 105 

and extending from 41° to 33° of North Lat- 
itude, has been sounded to the awful depth of 
nearly eight miles, and no bottom reached. 
Still further south, bottom was found at the 
depth of eight and three-quarter miles. Two 
of the main difficulties in sounding these great 
sea depths are the under currents swaying the 
weight and line away from a perpendicular 
direction, and the great amount of friction 
upon a long line drawn through the water. 
This friction is greater at vast deptL than near S 
the surface, as the water grows more dense 
downward, and the line in drawing up the 
weight is prone to break by reason of the great 
strain upon it. 

On the supposition that the average depth 
of the ocean is two miles, the whole mass of 
ocean water upon the globe is 240,000,000 of 
solid miles. A world of water indeed ! yet 
were the globe hollow instead of being solid, 
it would be a vessel adequate to contain all 
this amount of water and about a thousand 
times as much more. 



XX. 



Mountain $tjstems* 




LTHOUGH, for the sake of distinc- 
tion, we speak of several systems of 
mountains on the globe, there are, 
in reality, but two great systems, one upon 
the eastern, and the other upon the western 
continent ; and to these two systems nearly 
all the minor systems properly belong. The 
grand system of the Old World extends east- 
erly sheer across Europe and Asia, a distance 
of 9,000 miles. The great system of the New 
World runs from Cape Horn nearly parallel 
with the western coast, northerly through the 
two continents, 10,000 miles. The African 
and Australian mountains, however, may be 
said to be independent of these two great sys- 
tems of the mountains of the world. 
106 



MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS. lO/ 

Of the European mountains, the Alps are 
the highest and most celebrated. They ex- 
tend about 500 miles east and west, and oc- 
cupy a breadth of from 80 to 200 miles ; and it 
is a curious fact that their breadth is narrow- 
est where the mountains are the highest. 
Mont Blanc is the loftiest summit, reaching 
a height slightly short of 16,000 feet, or a lit- 
tle more than three miles. Mont Rosa is 
nearly as high, 15,223 feet. Besides these, the 
Alps has, at least, one hundred peaks that are 
more than 10,000 feet in height, all of which 
are covered with everlasting snows. Most of 
these peaks are accessible, though the ascent 
of some of them is very difficult and danger- 
ous. There are many passes over these im- 
mense mountains, the loftiest of which is the 
Adler Pass, whose height is 12,461 feet. The 
Pyrenees, between France and Spain, attain a 
height, in Mt. Maladetta, of over 11,000 feet 
for its highest peak, while the width of the 
chain is about the same as that of the Alps. 
The highest peak of the Carpathian Mountains 
is about 10,000 feet, and that of the Appen- 
ines, Mt, Como, nearly as high. The loftiest 
Scandinavian peak is about 8,000 feet, and the 



I08 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

highest summit in the British Isles is Ben 
Nevis, in Scotland, about 4,000 feet. Passing 
to the boundary between Europe and Asia, we 
meet the Caucasus Mountains, the loftiest of 
which reaches the great height of 17,800 feet, 
with many other peaks of over 10,000 feet. 

Advancing eastward, we presently come to 
the tremendous Himalayan range, embracing 
elevations far exceeding any others on the 
globe. Here are multitude of summits much 
higher than Mont Blanc in Europe, while the 
loftiest elevation, Mt. Everest, attains the enor- 
mous height of 29,000 feet, about 5 J miles, and 
is the highest mountain on earth, although 
several other peaks nearly equal this in height. 
Farther north is the Altai range of mountains, 
of which the highest summit is about 10,000 
feet. 

Of the African mountains, the Atlas range 
has, for its loftiest peak, a height of 11^400 
feet. Several other ranges on the continent 
comprise mountains of much greater height, 
the loftiest not less than 20,000. 

Returning to our own continent, the mount- 
ain systems are equally interesting with those 
of the Old World. In North America we have 



MOUNTAIN SYSTEMS. IO9 

the AUeghanies running parallel with the At- 
lantic coast, and extending, with some inter- 
ruptions, from Alabama to Vermont. Their 
height is moderate, unless we include the 
White Mountains of New Hampshire, whose 
highest summit is one and a quarter miles. 
Far away westward, a thousand miles from 
the AUeghanies, arises the Rocky Moimtains, 
stretching away 1,800 miles to the Arctic 
Ocean, with here and there a summit equaling 
the height of Mont Blanc. Proceeding 500 
miles farther west and nearing the Pacific 
coast, we come to the great chain of the Sierra 
Nevada, taking, as they cross Oregon and 
Washington, the name of Cascade Mountains, 
and terminating with Mt. St. Elias in Alaska, 
a mountain about 18,000 feet high. In Cen- 
tral America are the Sierra Madre range, and 
many single peaks. 

Then passing the Isthmus of Darien we 
encounter the prodigious chain of the Andes, 
extending along the whole western coast of 
South America, and, except the Himalayas, 
embracing the loftiest summits of the world. 
Here rise the sublime heights of St. Martha, 
Tolima, Antisane, Cayambe, and Cotopaxi, 



no THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

each of them 19,000 feet in the air. Here, 
too, is Chimborazo, of nearly 22,000 feet, Acon- 
caqua, 24,000 feet, while, among the Peruvian 
Andes, are elevations exceeding 25,000 feet 
above the neighboring Pacific. 

It is proper to add that nearly all lofty 
mountains are embraced in some one of the 
great ranges. There are, however, a few such 
mountains that rise solitary and alone. Of 
these is Mt. Egmont of New Zealand, a grand 
example of the almost perfect cone, capped 
with everlasting snow, and visible far out at 
sea. Mt. Ararat, of Armenia, the summ^it on 
which rested Noah's ark, is a partial example, 
rising 17,210 feet above the level of the sea. 
The Peak of Teneriffe also stands alone in 
solitary grandeur, looking from above the 
clouds, down on the solitary ocean. 




XXI. 



iJimensions ^f Mountains* 




AVING taken the preceding general 
view of the great mountain systems 
of the world, let us indulge a some- 
what closer and familiar glance at these deeply 
interesting objects, the mountains ; for none 
of us should be* satisfied with general and su- 
perficial notions of matters so magnificent and 
grand. 

It is natural to look, first, at the immensity 
of these wonderful protuberances of the earth's 
surface. Nearly all the great mountains of 
the earth are connected with other mountains, 
so that it is more difficult to estimate properly 
their real dimensions. Also, it is generally 
difficult to estimate, by the eye, the height of 

lofty mountains. Standing near such mount- 

111 



112 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

ains, we fail to take in only a part of their alti- 
tude. The summit is invisible, being hidden 
from sight by the intervening convexities of 
the mountain surface. The Himalayas must 
be ascended several thousand feet before their 
tops can be descried, and he who would see 
those sublime peaks rising from the level sur- 
face five or six miles into the air, must need 
take a position scores of miles away from 
where the awful ascent commences, while the 
view from such a distance will necessarily di- 
minish, to the eye, the actual elevation of the 
mountains. Yet, think of immense swells, or 
land billows, a hundred miles wide at their 
base and towering from one to five miles above 
the earth's ordinary level, and extending thou- 
sands of miles along the surface of the globe. 
And yet, what is the largest and loftiest of 
these huge mountains to that incredibly large 
globe on which they rest ? It would take 666 
mountains like the highest mountain in the 
world, piled one upon another, to reach from 
the center to the surface of this earth. And 
to the eye that could take in the whole lofty 
reach, what would be one other such mountain 
piled upon the 666th one.'^ It would be seen, 



DIMENSIONS OF MOUNTAINS. 113 

indeed, but seen as a very diminutive affair 
with the 666 beneath it. It must be the head 
of a very small pin lying on the surface of 
a large artificial globe, that would faithfully 
show the proportion to the globe. Level down 
the great Pyrenees, says one, and spread 
them over France, and you will. elevate the 
surface of that country but nine feet. Tear 
down the immense Alps, Mont Blane and all, 
and spread them over Europe; and you have 
elevated that great continent only nineteen 
feet. 

But why these mountains ? what is their 
use.^ Much that we see, and probably much 
that we do not discern. Piercing far aloft 
into the humid atmosphere, they thence at- 
tract to themselves watery treasures, some of 
which flowing down their sides, and others 
collecting within their spacious mountain cav- 
erns, become sources of innumerable rivers 
flowing out to fertilize the surrounding coun- 
try. Also, within the bowels of the mountains 
are gathered immense treasures of the mineral 
world ; as coal, iron, copper, silver, gold, and 
other precious things, so necessary to multitu- 
dinous useful and ornamental purposes. And 



114 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

further, it hath pleased our Heavenly Father 
to enstamp upon this dwelling-place of ours 
various striking and ornamental features, 
whereof the mountains are a conspicuous in- 
stance. How graceful the green hills ! Also, 
how beautiful as well as grand the landscape 
ascending far upward, displaying, at first, its 
verdant openings ; then, farther aloft, dense 
with far-reaching forests ; then showing, at still 
loftier heights, a wilderness of gorges, rocks, 
and precipices, far above which commences the 
realm of eternal snows, culminating in that 
glistening peak piercing into the skies ! And 
how rich, how gorgeous, the spectacle of the 
mellow clouds rolling up that mountain-side 
'' before the rising glories of a Summer*s morn- 
ing !" How grand the mountain when the 
same cloud envelops it with those golden 
folds ! And how eagerly we gaze as they lift 
off, anon, and leave the great mountain naked 
and alone in his glory ! 



XXII. 



Mountain f asses. 




IF course, these lofty mountain ranges 
of the earth are impassable, except in 
a few locaUties. These are called 
Passes; of which there are several, more or 
less celebrated, leading across the Alps, the 
Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra 
Nevadas, and other ranges. These passes 
rarely cross over the mountain summits, but 
more commonly follow up the ravines through 
which the waters flow down the mountains, 
and descend by a similiar path down the other 
side. 

There are sixteen passes over the Alps, all 
of which, except two, can be used with car- 
riages. The pass which is most noted and ex^ 
tensively traveled is that of Mont Cenis. Here 

^15 



Il6 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

an admirable road was built by Napoleon in 
1805. This pass is thirty miles across, eight- 
een feet wide, and 6,773 feet above the sea. 
The pass of the great St. Bernard is higher, 
being nearly 8,000 feet. This is famous for its 
"Hospice," or hospital, kept up by several 
monks, and where many unfortunate travelers, 
overtaken by snow-storms in crossing the 
mountains, have been rescued by the monks 
with the assistance of their dogs, and kindly 
cared for. The loftiest pass over the Alps is 
that of St. Cervin, which is more than 11,000 
feet above the sea level. The passes of the 
Simplon and St. Gothard are also celebrated. 
The passes over the Himalaya Mountains 
are, as you might suppose, very much loftier and 
more difficult than those of the Alps. The 
lowest of these passes has a height scarcely 
less than Mont Blanc, while several of them 
are considerably higher. One is between 18,- 
000 and 19,000 feet, and another, the highest, 
is 20,000 feet, nearly three times the height 
of Mt. Washington. All these passes are, of 
course, terrific to travel over, while the rarity 
of the atmosphere, at such great heights, ren- 
ders breathing very difficult, and the fatigue 



xMOUNTAIN PASSES. 11/ 

dreadful to endure. "Animals are as much dis- 
tressed as human beings, and many die. Thou- 
sands of birds perish from the violence of the 
wind, the drifting snow is often fatal to travel- 
ers, and violent thunder-storms add to the 
horror of the journey." One traveler, describ- 
ing his journey over one of these tremendous 
passes, relates that he, with his guide, had not 
only to walk barefooted, from the risk of slip- 
ping, but they were obliged to creep along the 
most frightful chasms, holding by twigs and 
tufts of grass, and sometimes they crossed deep 
and awful crevices on a branch of a tree, or on 
loose stones thrown across. The scenery in 
traveling these awful passes of the Himalaya 
Mountains is said to be a jvfully grand ^.TidCwiAJ 
magnificent. "During the day," writes Mrs. 
Somerville, " the stupendous si^e of the mount- 
ains, their interminable extent, the variety and 
sharpness of their forms, and, above all, the 
tender clearness of their distant outline melt- 
ing into the pale-blue sky, contrasted with the 
deep azure above, is described as a scene of 
wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when 
myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and 
the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper 



Tl8 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Still below the pale white gleam of the earth 
and snow-light, the effect is of unparalleled 
solemnity, and no language can describe the 
splendor of the sunbeams at day-break stream- 
ing between the high peaks, and throwing 
their gigantic shadows on the mountains be- 
low. There, far above the habitation of man, 
no living thing exists, no sound is heard ; the 
very echo of the traveler's footsteps startles 
him in the awful solitude and silence that 
reigns in these august dwellings of everlasting 
snow." 




XXIII. 



fountain JtsiJ^nts. 




ANY travelers, especially of late years, 
are not content in their mountain ex- 
cursions to confine themselves to the 
passes leading across them, but not a few scale 
them to their summits, and feast themselves 
to the full with the sublimity of the scenery 
presented to their view. These ascents of 
lofty mountains, however, are no mere holiday 
affair, but they are performed with much labor 
and fatigue, and are often attended with dan- 
ger to life and limb ; and lives have frequently 
been lost in attempts to perform these perilous 
ascents, while many others have barely es- 
caped the same frightful destiny. No one 
should attempt the ascent of lofty mountains 

but such as can uniformly exercise entire self- 

119 



120 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

control — who can look down huge precipices 
without agitation, who can, at will, command 
their eyes away from what is fearful, and fix 
them coolly and exclusively upon the perilous 
steps they must take. The greatest dangers 
of climbing Alpine steeps are said to be these : 
The first is in crossing the snow bridges which 
become formed over deep chasms that yawn 
amid the glaciers of the mountains. These 
bridges are apt to yield when stepped upon, 
and not a few adventurers have thus fallen 
into unknown depths, and were never seen 
afterward. A second danger is in slipping 
upon steep slopes of hard ice. When the feet 
thus give way, the traveler runs the utmost 
hazard of sliding over some one of the awful 
precipices that abound upon the mountain- 
sides. A third peril is that of being over- 
whelmed and buried under frightful avalanches 
of snow and ice that frequently come rushing 
down from the upper heights. 

To escape the peril from snow bridges and 
from slipping upon icy slopes, travelers are 
accustomed to tie themselves together by a 
strong rope around the waist, so that if one 
should slump or slip, he will be held by the 



MOUNTAIN ASCENTS. 121 

Others, and thus escape the destruction which 
he would, otherwise, almost certainly meet. 
And even this precaution does not always 
avail. A most melancholy disaster occurred in 
the Summer of 1865 upon the "Matterhorn" 
Alp. This is perhaps the most remarkable 
peak of the Alps, if not of the world. From 
a glacier summit of 11,000 feet ascends a tre- 
mendous peak sheer up 4,000 feet more, and 
nearly as steep as a thimble placed upon its 
open end upon a table. Four men, one of 
whom was a British nobleman, and another a 
minister of the Gospel, scaled, by some means, 
this awful obelisk. They were connected to 
each other by a rope, and soon after com- 
mencing their descent, one of the men slipped, 
which produced so great a strain upon the rope 
that it parted between the two uppermost men, 
when all the three that were below the fracture 
of the rope went immediately over the huge 
precipice, and fell through the whole 4,000 
feet. The nobleman and the minister were 
of the; three that thus miserably perished. 

There are places on this earth that were not 
designed for men, and where man should 
never venture ; and he who does thus venture, 



122 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

travels away from the arms of a protecting 
Providence. We think these adventurers must 
have no sooner commenced the attempt to 
accompHsh that most perilous descent before 
realizing that, in all probability, they were lost 
men. It was a poor ambition that doubtless 
urged them up thither, and who can avoid the 
conclusion that they "died as the fool dieth?" 




XXIV. 



^otintain Experieruces* 




OUBTLESS some of my young read- 
ers, will travel in foreign countries, 
and will see for themselves, and 
ascend some of the lofty summits of the 
Alps or the Andes. If so, your first approach 
to these sublime eminences will be deeply in- 
teresting to you. Previously, it may be, you 
shall have looked only upon hills which, though 
seeming lofty, were yet smooth and green to 
their very tops. But the spectacle will be 
very different as you will approach some one 
of the great mountain ranges. At first, and 
when seventy-five or a hundred miles away, 
they will wear a dim appearance, like clouds 
lying far off in the horizon ; and their tops 

will put on the aspect of wavy ridges, not 

123 



124 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

unlike the ocean billows, as when, off at sea, 
they are rolling by us, and in the dim distance 
there will be little or no variety of hue. Ap- 
proaching nearer, you will begin to observe a 
striking difference. The summits that, when 
far off, appeared so rounded and comparatively 
regular, have now grown jagged and pointed, 
and the great range has loomed up into an 
immense wall, and the whole reach of the 
horizon in that direction is hidden. For a 
space, perhaps, the protuberances may be 
nearly equal in height, and then, at right and 
left of these, tower up far above them mightier 
eminences surmounted by several peaks or 
needles piercing the overhanging sky, or some- 
times some crowning summit, as Mont Blanc, 
seen from the Brevent, will sit above them all, 
his top showing a graceful pyramid upon which 
you might seem to ascend and repose almost 
without an effort. Or contrasted with this, if 
you shall be approaching Zermett, then the 
tremendous Matterhorn will be in full view, 
springing directly from its mountain base of 
ii,ooo feet, and shooting almost perpendicu- 
larly another 4,000 feet into the upper air. 
Meanwhile the mountain-sides are no longer 



MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 1 25 

dim and of uniform hue. Huge dark preci- 
pices lift themselves far aloft, sometimes as 
they descend, hiding themselves behind inter- 
vening and lower eminences, or cut off at right, 
or left, or both, by grim dark gorges or ravines 
through which ragged glaciers are slowly mak- 
ing their way down from the upper regions ; 
while all aloft, eternal snows, intermingled 
with the bold, bare rocks and precipices, hold 
their solitary and desolate reign. Meanwhile, 
the nearer view shows you that it is not a 
mere mountain ridge or chain that you are ap- 
proaching, but, rather, an immense congeries 
or cluster of mountains — some nearer and 
lower, and others farther and loftier ; or, when 
nearer ones appear the loftiest, between the 
nearer summits other huge peaks are seen 
lifting themselves in the rear, and appearing 
embosomed in a mighty embrace of neighbor- 
ing mountains. 

At length, when all is in readiness, you will 
commence the ascent of some one of the great 
summits. Reaching the top of one elevation, 
another at once presents itself, which, in its 
turn, is also scaled ; while, after several such 
ascents, the great summit seems as far aloft, 



126 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

and as far ofif, as before you started. Then 
there comes on a change beneath your feet. 
You left, at starting upward, green fields, and 
pasture lands, and fragrant flowers. You are 
now treading upon moss instead of grass, and 
the verdant landscape is changed to a russet 
hue, and the weather has grown cooler, and 
trees, if any are left, are stunted and unsightly. 
Presently, still ascending, vegetation mainly 
ceases, and bald rocks and ledges succeed, the 
latter sloping off over precipices thousands of 
feet downward. It now becomes severely cold, 
and you have reached the realms of snow and 
ice, and everlasting frosts, and you must not 
wonder if, aloft upon these dismal heights, you 
shall encounter storms and whirlwinds more 
violent and wild than you ever before con- 
ceived. Passing yet farther upward, you may 
possibly emerge into a calmer region, where 
the storms and tempests will be seen raging 
far beneath you, and you will see lightnings 
and listen to thunderings in a direction in 
which you never noticed them before, that 
is, far below instead of above. Amid these 
awful heights where you are now groping your 
way still upward, you will need to be greatly 



MOUNTAIN EXPERIENCES. 12/ 

circumspect and careful. Sometimes you will 
be creeping along the edge of a precipice almost 
frightful even to think of, and where a single 
false step might plunge you into ruin. Here, 
again, the ascent is so steep and slippery that 
every step must be first cut into the solid ice 
with a hatchet. Beware as you attempt cross- 
ing that deep crevasse sinking hundreds of 
feet down amid the ice depths. But you per- 
severe, and the great Hand has upheld you 
on your path of peril, and you have reached 
the summit. But, alas, you must go down 
again ! You will need the same Hand along 
the more perilous descent. 




XXV. 



Sajcr^d fountains* 




jOUNTAINS are always sublime ; and 
it is not so strange that they should 
be objects of notice in the Holy 
Scriptures, and more or less associated with 
the Divine communications to our earth. 
Some of these Scripture mountains should at- 
tract the notice of young readers, for the very 
reason that they are named and noticed in the 
sacred oracles. 

Of these Mt. Ararat, in Armenia, is first 
noticed in the Bible. Its great height has al- 
ready been named, and, also, that it is one of 
the few lofty mountains of the world that 
stands partially solitary and alone. It has, 
however, a double summit though one base, 

the lower summit being 3,000 or 4,000 feet be- 

128 



SACRED MOUNTAINS. 



129 



low the higher one, and the two summits are 
nearly seven miles apart. Many attempts have 
been made to reach the top of this mountain, 
all of which were unsuccessful until a German, 
Dr. Parrot, in 1829, after two vain attempts, 
succeeded in a third effort and gained the aw- 
ful apex. The summit was slightly convex, 
almost a perfect circle, about 200 feet in di- 
ameter, and composed of smooth, eternal ice, 
unbroken by a rock or stone. By reason of 
the immense distances of objects, nothing 
could be seen distinctly. The permanent 
snow capping the mountain extends from the 
top three miles down the sides. 

This mountain is famous as being the emi- 
nence where the ark rested when the great 
flood was subsiding, and whence Noah and his 
family descended after the drying off of the 
waters, and where the human race and the va- 
rious tribes of lower animals commenced, a 
second time, to spread themselves over the 
earth. 

Mt. Moriah is early named in the Scrip- 
tures, it being the eminence where Abraham 
was directed to offer up his son Isaac. From 
its altitude it hardly merits the appellation of 

9 



I30 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

mountain, being one of the hills which make 
the foundation of the city of Jerusalem. It is 
the eastern summit, overlooking the vale of 
Cedron, and was the site of the famous tem- 
ple of Solomon, and the second temple, and is 
now the site of a Mohammedan temple, the 
Mosque of Omar. 

Sinai is noticed in the Bible in connection 
with Moses and the giving of the law to the 
Israelites after crossing the Red Sea. Sinai 
is the name assigned not to one particular em- 
inence but to a group of mountains in Arabia 
Petrea. There are numerous peaks ranging 
from i,ooo to over 9,000 feet above the sea; on 
which of these summits the great Moses as- 
cended to meet God and speak with Him " face 
to face" travelers and writers are not agreed. 
Dr. Robinson, whose authority is perhaps 
equal to any other, assigns the honor to the 
mountain named Ras Sassafeh, a summit be- 
tween 7,000 and 8,000 feet high, before which 
open out two wide valleys capable of contain- 
ing the great host of the Israelites. 

Mt, Hor is also a mountain of Arabia Pe- 
trea, on the confines of Idumea, and is only 
mentioned in the Scriptures in connection with 



SACRED MOUNTAINS. I3I 

Aaron. It was to the summit of this mount- 
ain that he was led up to die in the presence 
of Moses his brother, and his son Eleazar, as 
described in the 20th of Numbers. The ascent 
is extremely steep and toilsome, the mountain 
is craggy and wild, and to one upon the sum- 
mit, the crags are represented as standing upon 
every side in the most ragged and fantastic 
forms, sometimes strangely piled one upon an- 
other, and sometimes as strangely yawning in 
clefts of a frightful depth. 

As Mt. Hor was famous by reason of the 
death of^Aaron upon its summit, Mt. Pisgah is 
more famous for the death of the great Moses. 
It is a mountain of Moab commanding a view 
of the desert eastward and westward, a view of 
the Jordan and the promised land beyond. It 
seems to have been nearly identical with Neboy 
which was probably one of the peaks of the 
Pisgah range. 

Here was represented to the eye of Moses 
a panoramic view or vision of Canaan in its 
length and breadth, and then he died; died 
alone, and only God was present and officiated 
at his funeral. 

Mt. Horeb seems identified with Sinai much 



lU- 



132 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

as Pisgah is with Nebo, and is illustrious from 
two or three notable facts of the Bible history. 
It was upon or near this mountain that Moses 
was tending the sheep of his father-in-law, 
when there came to him this solemn call from 
God to conduct Israel from Egypt to the prom- 
ised land. Also somewhere here it was that 
he smote the rock for water, and where, in 
connection with this transaction, he most 
unfortunately spoke unadvisedly with his lips, 
and by reason thereof was forbidden to enter 
the land of promise. 

Mt, Carmel is a ridge in Palestine, bjanching 
off from the mountains of Samaria, and extend- 
ing, by a north-west course, sixteen miles to the 
Mediterranean. Its highest point is 1,750 feet 
above the neighboring sea. While the entire 
ridge of Carmel is represented as wild, and 
rendered hideous by the presence of wild 
beasts, many of its slopes are described as 
very beautiful, being sprinkled with oaks and 
green with rich pasture-lands, where myriads 
of wild flowers of every brilliant hue are 
scattered in abundance over the splendid 
landscape. 

Repeated and interesting mention is made 



SACRED MOUNTAINS. 1 33 

in the Scriptures of Mt. Carmel, and with its 
beautiful name are associated some of the fair- 
est of sacred imagery, as well as some of the 
marvelous transactions of the olden time. The 
great and solemn Elijah often lingered amid its 
fragrant groves, and somewhere here he, with 
his altar, confronted Baal's prophets with their 
falsehoods, and, invoked the divine fire, and 
slew them before God, and ascending the sum- 
mit, offered the "fervent and effectual prayer" 
for rain until appeared the little cloud like a 
man's hand. Here, too, at times, sojourned 
his associate and successor, the mighty Elisha ; 
who, somewhere in sight of the mountain, re- 
called to life the Shunamite's little beautiful 
boy. Also not far off was the scene of David's 
eventful interview with the graceful and judi- 
cious Abigail, whereof the sequel was nothing 
less than a royal wedding after not many days. 
Lebanon is a celebrated mountain range of 
Syria, extending from the northern limit of 
Palestine, north-easterly over a hundred miles, 
and whose loftiest summit is 10,000 feet above 
the sea. The mountains of Lebanon are fa- 
mous both Scripturally and classically, and the 
view of them from the Mediterranean is said to 



134 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

be exceedingly grand. They appear to rise 
from the bosom of the deep Hke a vast wall, 
their loftiest summit always covered with snow. 
To these mountains the allusions in the Scrip- 
tures are too numerous for specification, and 
the magnificent cedars clothing their lofty sides 
were favorite emblems of beauty, grandeur, and 
prosperity. 

Mt. Olivet, standing out immediately before 
the east front of Jerusalem, and separated from 
it by the brook Cedron, is prominent among 
the sacred mountains. At its base is Geth- 
semane. Bethany lay just over its principal 
summit, whither the Savior of men often re- 
sorted to repose, for an hour or a night, amid 
the pleasant hospitalities of Martha and Mary, 
whom, with their brother Lazarus, he specially 
loved, and whence he called the latter back, 
for a time, from paradise, and where was the 
sacred dust, the last that was touched by the 
beautiful feet of the Master as he went away 
to his Father. 

Mt, Zion, too, the southern summit of Jeru- 
salem, is wreathed all over with affecting and 
sunny associations. "Beautiful for situation" 
was it in the olden time, and royalty dwelt 



SACRED MOUNTAINS. . 1 35 

there, and heavenly song ascended thence, and 
there was heard the golden harp whose blissful 
notes were listened to and loved in heaven, 
and that was the sacred summit honored as 
the bright emblem of the celestial fold, and the 
name whereof is assigned to the great spiritual 
kingdom, whether on earth or in heaven, of 
God's Messiah. 

"For ye are not come to the mount that 
might be touched, and that burned with fire ; 
but ye are come to Mt. Zion, the city of the 
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an 
innumerable company of angels, to the general 
assembly and Church of the First-born which 
are written in heaven, and to God the judge of 
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, 
and to Jesus." 

Finally, westward of the city, and "without 
the gate," was Mt, Calvary , named and known 
only, and forever to be named and known only, 
as the theater of the great crucifixion. The 
Cross, the Victim, the Blood, the Death, the 
Life, the Eternal Salvation, these are its whis- 
perings. Traveler! tread softly there and lis- 
ten : " Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 
of the law, being made a curse for us." 



XXVI. 



f lains^ 



IF the mountains of the earth are sub- 
Hme objects, the great Plains of the 
several continents are scarcely less 
so. These plains comprise vast areas mostly 
level, and comparatively at but a small eleva- 
tion above the level of the ocean. Through 
them the rivers mostly flow, and they are, for 
the most part, the inhabited and cultivated 
regions of the earth, and are often exceedingly 
fertile. 

Beginning with our own continent, a com- 
paratively narrow plain lies between the At- 
lantic Ocean and the Alleghany Mountains. 
Crossing the Alleghanies, between these and 
the base of the Rocky Mountains west, and 
between Hudson's Bay and the Arctic Ocean , 
136 



PLAINS. 137 

north, and Mexico with the Mexican Gulf 
south, is a vast plain cut by the Mississippi 
and its numerous tributaries, and nearly all of 
which, except the far north, is a land of great 
fertility and capable of the largest production. 
East and North, and all along many of the 
river courses, it comprises extensive forest 
lands, while immense tracts are destitute of 
trees and have received the name oi prairie. 
The most of this immense plain belongs to 
our country, and comprises nineteen entire 
States and Territories, besides parts of several 
others. 

South America is as famous for its prodig- 
ious plains as for its lofty and magnificent 
mountains. The great basins of the Oronoco, 
Amazon, and La Plata Rivers, comprising the 
greatest portion of that land, may be said to 
constitute one far-reaching plain, stretching 
through the entire length of the continent. 
Much of the portion covered by the inunda- 
tions of the Amazon is a great forest land, 
dense with trees, and, by the decay of the 
forests for ages, it is a land of excessive fer- 
tility. But much of it is impracticable by 
reason of the luxuriousness of the vegetation, 



138 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

and for this and other reasons is unfavorable 
for human occupation. As Mrs. Somerville 
writes : 

"The heat of these extensive regions is 
suffocating in the deep and dark recesses 
of these primeval woods, where not a breath 
of air penetrates, and where, after being 
drenched by the periodical rains, the damp 
is so excessive, that a blue mist rises in the 
early morning among the huge stems of the 
trees, and envelops the entangled creepers 
stretching from bough to bough. A death- 
like stillness prevails from sunrise to sunset ; 
then the thousands of animals that inhabit 
these forests join in one loud, discordant roar, 
not continuous, but in bursts. The beasts 
seem to be periodically and unanimously roused 
by some unknown impulse, till the forest rings 
in universal uproar. Profound silence prevails 
at midnight, which is broken at the dawn of 
morning by another general roar of wild 
chorus. Nightingales, too, have their fits of 
silence and of song ; after a pause they 

'All burst forth in choral minstrelsy, 
As if some sudden gale had swept at once 
A hundred airy harps.' 



PLAINS. 



139 



"The whole forest often resounds where the 
animals, startled from their sleep, scream in 
terror at the noise made by bands of its in- 
habitants flying from some night-prowling foe." 




XXVII. 



fJateaux^ 




jABLE-LANDS, or Plateaux, are also 
a prominent feature of the land surface 
of our earth. These are also plains ; 
and they differ from those described in the pre- 
ceding sketch by having a greater elevation 
above the ocean level. They are a sort of me- 
dium between common plains and the lofty 
mountains of the globe ; and are, in many in- 
stances, inhabited by man, and even comprise 
extensive and populous cities. 

The highest table-land on earth is Thibet of 
Asia, lying north of the great Himalaya 
Mountains, a cold, inhospitable region, where 
human habitations are found at a height above 
the ocean about equal to that of Mont Blanc, 
in Europe. Besides this prodigious plateau, 
140 



PLATEAUX. 141 

Asia contains other immense reaches of table- 
land. The countries of Mongolia, Persia, Ar- 
menia, Asia Minor, and Arabia, partake largely 
of this character. 

Plateaux abound, also, in Europe, although 
of less elevation than most of the Asiatic table- 
lands. Much of Spain is an elevated plain, 
and the city of Madrid stands between 2,000 
and 3,000 feet above the ocean level ; and the 
plateau of Bavaria, of Central Europe, has 
about the same elevation. The southern part 
of Norway and Sweden is higher still, being 
about 4,000 feet above the surrounding waters. 

In Africa, Abyssinia is a cluster of plateaux, 
separated from each other by mountain chains. 
One of these plains is 9,000 feet aloft. The 
great Sahara desert is somewhat elevated, and, 
from five or six degrees south latitude to the 
Cape of Good Hope, the African continent is 
supposed to be a vast table-land. 

Passing to our own continent, table-lands 
are also frequent and extensive. From the 
Missouri River to the base of the Rocky 
Mountains is a great plateau gradually as- 
cending for 500 miles. So also between 
the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada is 



142 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

mainly a table-land, being 4,000 or 5,000 feet 
higher than the ocean. Turning toward the 
south we have the great table-lands of Mexico, 
the most extensive in North America. On the 
highest of these plateaux stands the City of 
Mexico itself, 9,000 feet above the neighboring 
Atlantic and Pacific seas, while to the south- 
east stretch away the lofty plains of Guatimala 
and Honduras, having an elevation of more 
than 6,000 feet, and Chihuahua is similarly 
lofty. 

Passing the Isthmus, South America has 
some of the most elevated and remarkable 
table-lands in the world. That of upper Peru 
is, next to the plains of Thibet, the loftiest on 
earth, being nearly 13,000 feet above the sea, 
and is surrounded by the loftiest summits of 
the Andes. Quito is 9,000 feet upward, while 
the streets of Potosi are 12,822 feet above the 
Pacific, and Lake Titicaca, a little distance 
north, is nearly as high. 



XXVIII. 



ifjeptessions* 




HILE Contemplating the regions of 
the globe thus elevated from 2,000 to 
16,000 feet above the sea level, it is 
curious to note certain regions which, though 
of comparatively limited extent, are below, in- 
stead of above, this great level. The aspect 
of these localities is as if they had, by some 
stupendous pressure, been sunk down below 
the average surface of surrounding lands. The 
Dead Sea of Palestine, together with the Sea 
of Galilee, sixty miles north of it, and the River 
Jordan and its valley lying between the two 
seas, comprise a region of this character. The 
Sea of Galilee is about 500 feet lower than 
the Mediterranean Sea, while the Dead Sea 
is nearly 1,000 feet lower still. This is the 

H3 



144 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

deepest depression below the great sea level 
that exists on earth. On the east side it has 
rugged mountains between 2,000 and 3,000 
feet in height, while on the opposite or west 
side the hills have a height of about 1,500 
feet, their tops being just about on a level with 
the Mediterranean Sea lying 100 miles west 
of them. The whole scenery is one of utter 
gloom and desolation. 

Another, but a very different depression be- 
low the great sea level, is a part of the country 
of Holland. Thousands of acres of this cu- 
rious country lie below the ocean, and are shut 
in from it by immense dikes or dams, erected 
and sustained at great public expense. Of 
course there is no natural drainage for such a 
country, and hence, in order to rid the land of 
superfluous water coming in by the rain or 
otherwise, multitudes of windmills are in con- 
stant operation, pumping the water over the 
dikes into the sea. These dikes have been, 
many times, broken through by the ocean, 
causing terrible floods over the country, and 
great losses of life and property. Nearly two 
hundred of these great inundations have oc- 
curred in Holland since the beginning of the 



DEPRESSIONS. I45 

Christian Era, and there have been instances 
in which more than 100,000 persons have been 
ingulfed. The latest, and one of the most ter- 
rible, transpired so late as 1825. And yet it is 
a country of marvelous fertility, picturesque 
scenery, and boundless wealth. The vast 
number of marshes, dikes, and canals, covered 
with ships which seem to move in the midst 
of windmills and avenues of trees of the rich- 
est verdure, impart to the greater portion of 
Holland an aspect of an extremely unique and 
original character, heightened by the presence 
of numerous charming country residences, 
towns and villages, of painted houses, washed 
externally from top to bottom every week, and 
of unparalleled neatness. 

There are several other depressions, both of 
land and water, in different regions of the 
globe. The surface of the Caspian Sea, for ex- 
ample, and a great extent of country around it, 
is lower than the level of the ocean. Also 
Lake Assal, in the north-east of Africa, is 
600 feet below the sea level. 

10 



XXIX. 



^aU^tjs^ 




E have written, in the preceding 
sketch, of certain remarkable depres- 
sio'ns of the earth's surface, where 
large spaces of both land and water are sunk 
below the level of the ocean, and, in some in- 
stances, hundreds of feet below. Between 
these and the plains of the earth are extensive 
intermediate regions, lower than the plains 
yet lying above the sea surface. These are 
called Valleys ; and they form another very in- 
teresting feature of the globe. They are of 
all dimensions, from the little verdant reaches, 
lying inclosed amid lofty mountains, to exten- 
sive territories covering thousands of square 
miles. These latter are more generally trav- 
ersed by the rivers with which the earth 
146 



VALLEYS. 147 

abounds, the streams meandering through 
them, sometimes midway, then wandering 
away far toward one or the other side of the 
valleys in which they are embosomed. Thus, 
in England, we have the valleys of the Thames 
and the Severn ; and on the continent is the 
famous valley of the Rhine, sometimes open 
and expanded, again shut in within narrow 
limits by mountains approaching the river. 
Another, of more imposing dimensions, is the 
valley of the Danube, spreading itself far 
away and forming the plains of Wallachia. 
Famous, also, is the great valley of the Ganges 
in Asia, and of the Amazon in South America, 
and the Mississippi Valley of our own coun- 
try. Yet where, as in some of these in- 
stances, they extend hundreds of miles on 
either side of the river, they seem to par- 
take more of the character of plains than val- 
leys. A valley, to display its true character 
and beauty as such, needs to be so limited as 
that its boundaries, either in whole or in part, 
may be distinctly visible. In such a case, it 
often presents to the eye some of the most 
beautiful landscapes of the earth. Take, for 
instance, some elevated and favorable position 



148 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

overlooking the valley of the Hudson or the 
Connecticut, the Thames, the Rhine, or hun- 
dreds of other rivers, and you will witness 
what will very nearly fill your idea of a terres- 
trial paradise. 

One of the most famous of the valleys of 
the earth is the vale of Cashmere, in the ex- 
treme north of the great country of Hindostan. 
It is of an irregular oval form, surrounded by 
lofty mountains, whose summits are crowned 
with eternal snows. Its level bottom is about 
seventy miles long and forty wide, although 
the entire valley extending to the very base of 
the mountains comprises about double this 
space. Thus wherever, along this vale, one 
might be living or traveling, the entire great 
mountain wall inclosing it would be conspicu- 
ous. A river — one of the tributaries of the 
Indus — traverses, with an unruffled current, 
the midst of the valley, receiving, in its pas- 
sage, a multitude of tributary streams, while, 
here and there, beautiful lakes and numer- 
ous natural fountains, sending their sparkling 
waters into the air, give variety and pictur- 
esqueness to the resplendent landscape. All 
European fruits and fruit-trees flourish here in 



VALLEYS. 



149 



perfection: as the apple, the pear, the peach, 
the plum, the apricot, the various nuts, and 
grapes in untold abundance, and in every con- 
ceivable variety. Also, the air is fragrant with 
flowers of every hue, and of gorgeous beauty 
growing wild amid those genial and fairy lands. 
The country is dotted with villages, each one 
embowered amid groves of chunars and pop- 
lars of enormous growth, and planted centuries 
ago by order of the Mogul Emperor. At the 
same time, the climate is mild, salubrious, and 
healthy, and the Cashmerians are pre-eminent 
for their physical perfection — the men being- 
tall, robust, and well formed, while the women 
are famous for their beauty and the brilliancy 
of their complexion. 

Such is one of the most famous valleys of 
the world. Yet we are obliged to be reminded 
that even Cashmere is not heaven. Amid all 
its magnificence of landscape, and its surround- 
ing grandeur, they tell us that frequent earth- 
quakes are there, and, what seems stranger 
than this, famine and pestilence sometimes 
make their baleful path into this paradise and 
slay their thousands in a few days of time. 
Moreover, though inhabited by comely men 



150 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

and beautiful women, they are represented as 
very much "lower than the angels/' being 
given to gayety and pleasure, and being "peer- 
less in cunning and avarice, and notoriously 
addicted to lying." 

Thus, I am suspicious, we shall ever find 
matters amid this fallen world of ours. There 
is no perfection under the sun. The serpent 
gained access to the first Paradise, and he is 
wherever, on this earth, some lovely Eden 
spreads itself abroad before the delighted vis- 
ion. Let us up and away, for this is not our 
rest. Over all this world " God has set one 
thing over against another, to the end that 
man shall find nothing after him.'' But 

" There is a world we have not seen, 
W^hich time can never dare destroy ; 
W^here mortal footstep hath not been, 
Nor ear hath caught its sounds of joy. 

It is all holy and serene — 

The land of glory and repose ; 
And there, to dim the radiant scene, 

The tear of sorrow never flows." 

One word more, however, touching the val- 
leys of the world. While, in many instances, 
they form the most beautiful dwelling-places 
for man, they are in general largely character- 



VALLEYS. 151 

ized by fertility as well as beauty. The valleys 
of the Nile, the Ganges, the Amazon, the Mis- 
sissippi, and a thousand others are illustrations. 
And yet one word more. Valleys may be 
said to be the great natural highways of the 
world. Often they are traversed by navigable 
rivers ; and these of themselves furnish a path 
for travel and commerce to an almost unlimited 
extent. The Mississippi River, with its sys- 
tem of navigable tributaries, opens up a length 
of steam pathway of 16,674 rniles, and then 
thousands of miles more beyond the head of 
navigable waters these river valleys furnish 
practicable courses for the railroads, and other 
roads, of countries, where, with the fewest 
obstructions and impediments, they may estab- 
lish their firm foundations. So true it is that 
immense utility, as well as varied and wide- 
spread beauty, characterizes the great valley 
system of the world. 



XXX. 



l^e^setts. 




|ESERTS are those regions of the 
earth which, by reason of their bar- 
renness, are unfitted for the abode of 
civiHzed man. 

There are districts of country where rain 
seldom or never falls, and where, as a matter 
of course, vegetation is either very scanty or 
wholly wanting, and nakedness and stark des- 
olation lord it over the gloomy scene. Here 
and there, indeed, at distant intervals, and 
where, by some means, a certain degree of 
moisture, greater than elsewhere in the desert, 
prevails, some scanty grass and stunted trees 
hold a sickly and feeble life. These spots are 
called Oases, are generally of but limited ex- 
tent, and are scattered over the vast desert as 

isles amid the ocean. 
152 



DESERTS. 153 

Deserts occur in various regions of the 
world; but as the term Desert always seems, 
*in our minds, synonymous with Sahara, and 
as this is considered a grand type of all desert- 
lands, I shall confine my remarks to a slight 
survey of this one huge and awful realm. 

The Great Sahara Desert monopolizes all 
of Northern Africa, except a comparatively 
narrow region along the Mediterranean, and 
also the valley of the Nile. Its dimensions 
comprehend fifteen degrees of latitude, and 
thirty degrees of longitude. In other words, 
it is nearly 3,000 miles in length, with an aver- 
age breadth of 1,000 miles. Commencing at 
the Atlantic Ocean, it spreads sheer across 
the African Continent to Egypt, overstepping 
which, the desert is repeated along the west- 
ern shores of the Red Sea. Crossing this, it 
monopolizes much of Arabia, and extends 
away toward the north-east, throwing its blight 
upon considerable portions of Persia, Thibet, 
and Tartary. 

The great African Sahara is, in the main, an 
immense barren and desolate region. The 
surface is extensively of sand, though not uni- 
versally so. Nor is it a dead level ; but the 



154 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

sand is often, by the violent winds, piled up 
into hills or enormous drifts, thus enhancing 
the hideousness of the general aspect of the 
landscape, and increasing the difficulty of trav- 
ersing it. When these great sand-storms oc- 
cur, the whole air is dense and darkened with 
the driving dust, and the unfortunate traveler 
is in imminent danger of suffocation, while the 
whitened bones scattered over the desert, tell 
something of the numbers that have thus mis- 
erably perished. At times, instead of loose 
sand, you encounter a hard, flinty surface of 
the desert, with dark ranges of rock towering 
up before you, and adding to the wildness of 
the scene. 

Along extended portions of this dreary 
waste, it never rains, and water is nowhere to 
be found. Here and there, at intervals of sev- 
eral days' journey apart, and where, by digging, 
it is possible to find water, wells are sunk for 
the purpose of supplying travelers and cara- 
vans urging their long and weary journey over 
the desert. As these wells are often far apart, 
it becomes necessary, in passing from one to 
another, to carry forward upon the camels a 
sufficiency of water to preserve life till the 



DESERTS. 155 

next well is reached, and then if this be dried 
up, as not unfrequently happens, death is al- 
most certain to the hapless voyager. 

At the same time the heat of the desert is 
excessive, rising at noon in Summer-time to 
107, 120, and even to 140 degrees. Added to 
these horrors, wild beasts infest these desolate 
regions. Worse than all, the wild and wander- 
ing Arab prowls over the desert — the genuine 
Ishmaelite — his hand against every man, and 
every man's hand against him. As he wanders 
hither and thither over this "waste, howling 
wilderness,'' his genius is that of a robber and 
murderer, and woe to the poor stranger that 
falls into his hands. 

Such is one of the dark and strange features 
belonging to our earth. Here stretches afar 
a prodigious area, equal to that of the whole 
United States and Territories, all unfit for the 
residence of civilized man. Why thus, I can 
not inform you. I may say, however, that 
civilization proceeds well without the aid of 
this great desert realm, and there is yet very 
"much land to be possessed" before human 
population, enterprise, and welfare will require 
the occupation of Sahara. 



XXXI. 



Barthj^iuafees. 





^S^ 




^^6 




«> vk^ 




r^^r 




mi 



|ARTHQUAKES are among the most 
interesting and awful phenomena be- 
longing to the history of our globe. 
An earthquake is an actual agitation and 
skaking of the earth, more or less violent in 
its movement, and more or less extensive in 
its reach. This phenomenon is probably ow- 
ing to the energy of elastic vapors confined 
far down beneath the surface of the earth, 
struggling for vent, and acting with force in- 
conceivably great and terrible. Some coun- 
tries are much more subject to earthquakes 
than others ; and it is noticed that they have 
the greatest frequency in countries subject to 
volcanoes, while it is altogether probable that 
the two disturbances have a similar origin. In 
156 



EARTHQUAKES. 1 5/ 

our own and many other countries, they seldom 
occur, and when they do their action is com- 
paratively slight, as well as of limited extent. 

On the other hand, some countries are 
greatly subject to them, and it is not unlikely 
that no day passes without the recurrence of 
an earthquake in some region of the earth. 
They transpire with the greatest frequency in 
such countries as some of those bordering on 
the Mediterranean, also Central America, and 
especially Chili and Peru of South America. 
In these two latter countries they are painfully 
common and destructive ; and with a view to 
guard against them, the inhabitants are accus- 
tomed to build their houses low, and with 
thick and strong walls so as to insure, if pos- 
sible, their stability against the earthquake 
shocks. 

The coming of these awful visitations is de- 
scribed as not always after the same manner. 
Sometimes their first approach is with com- 
parative gentleness. There is a rumbling 
sound like distant thunder, and its approach is 
distinctly marked by the increasing loudness 
of the noise until the shock reaches the spot 
where you are. At other times, the shock is 



158 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

sudden and instantaneous, performs its work 
in a few seconds, and is gone. Often the 
shocks are repeated with short intervals, or the 
intervals may be longer. Then, again, the 
character of the motion may be different. 
Sometirnes it seems to be a vertical motion, 
the ground under the feet rising and sinking 
in rapid succession. At other times, it seems 
a sort of undulating motion analogous to waves 
on the surface of water. At times, these mo- 
tions are of great violence, so that the surface 
of the ground is broken, and yawning chasms 
are formed ; and these are sometimes so wide 
and deep that buildings and people are sud- 
denly ingulfed in them, and the chasm sud- 
denly closes up again, burying alive the unfor- 
tunate victims. Large trees and whole cities 
have thus, in some instances, been swallowed 
up. Sometimes torrents of water are ejected 
from the newly made chasms, and smoke and 
flames have been known to issue from them. 
Most of these more violent and terrible earth- 
quakes occur in the neighborhood of the sea, 
and this seems to be as strangely affected as 
the land. At first, the water retires unusally, 
leaving the shores or harbors dry — a sad pre- 



EARTHQUAKES. 159 

sage ! For, suddenly, the water returns in the 
shape of an enormous wave surging up over 
the city, and over a wide extent of country, 
hurUng vessels far inland, whence they can not 
again be launched upon their native element. 
By this one operation thousands of lives have 
been destroyed within a few seconds. 

How calamitous and awful have been the de- 
vastations of earthquakes ; I subjoin a few 
specific facts for illustration. In 1692 the isl- 
and of Jamaica was visited by an earthquake, 
when the capital city of the island sunk di- 
rectly down with the great part of the build- 
ings. More than a thousand acres thus sunk 
in a moment of time, and the sea rolled over 
the entire area. A still more dreadful catastro- 
phe befell the island of Java in 1772 ; a neigh- 
boring volcanic mountain fifteen miles long 
and six broad, with forty villages and their in- 
habitants, suddenly sunk beneath the waters. 

Of the great earthquake at Lisbon, Portu- 
gal, in 1755, you have doubtless read. In that 
terrible earthquake, within six minutes of time, 
most of that beautiful city was shaken to pieces, 
and 60,000 people perished. As the buildings 
were falling thousands of persons sought safety 



l60 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

upon a new and extensive marble quay, when 
it suddenly sunk like a ship foundering at sea, 
and not one of the thousands of bodies ever 
reappeared ; and the water where was the 
quay stood six hundred feet deep. The ex- 
tent of this earthquake was computed to be 
greater than four times that of Europe. It 
was felt in the Alps, in Germany, Sweden, 
Great Britain, Northern Africa, West Indies, 
and extensively in this country. 




XXXII. 



Earthquaties of 1$6$/ 




UT the year 1868 must be set down 
as emphatically the great Earthquake 
Year, when a series of earthquakes 
occurred in this Western hemisphere to which 
history furnishes no parallel. 

This great exhibition opened at the Sandwich 
Islands in connection with an extraordinary 
eruption of the volcano Matcna Loa. Simul- 
taneously with this volcanic eruption the earth- 
quake commenced, and it was estimated that, 
in the course of twelve days, there were 2,000 
shocks, followed, at intervals, by fearful waves 
flowing in from the ocean, and destroying vil- 
lages and their inhabitants. The severest 
shock was on the 2d of April, causing much 

destruction of property and life. About eighty 
II 161 



l62 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

persons perished, and a multitude of domestic 
animals. 

But the Sandwich Island earthquake seems 
to have been a trifle compared to what hap- 
pened, a few months afterward, in South Amer- 
ica. Here the first shock was felt at Arica, 
Peru. This town was utterly destroyed, and a 
multitude of people were killed. Several ships 
in the harbor were wrecked by the tremendous 
wave which, at a great height, surged in and 
overwhelmed the city, and bearing with it ves- 
sels, and lodging them miles inland. At Are- 
quipa nearly every house was leveled, and five 
hundred people were drowned. Numerous 
cities along the Peruvian coast were partially 
or wholly destroyed. From Calao to Iquique, 
the entire coast of Peru was left in a complete 
state of desolation and ruin. 

Three days after this terrible earthquake, 
another, more terrible still, occurred in Ecua- 
dor. The report of this earthquake, communi- 
cated to Secretary Seward, by our Minister to 
Peru, Mr. Hovey, will give us some idea of the 
terrible scene. Tiiese are a few of the items : 

Eight towns with the adjoining populations 
and haciendas are said to have been destroyed. 



EARTHQUAKES OF 1868. 1 63 

numbering from 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. 
The cities of Otavato and Cotachi, consisting 
of 20,000 inhabitants, were swallowed up with 
their entire population. Ibarra was destroyed 
with 10,000 people. Atunlaque was leveled 
with the earth, burying all its inhabitants. 
The destruction was not confined to the cities, 
but numerous and rich farm establishments, 
producing large numbers of cattle and sheep 
were all destroyed. To add to the other hor- 
rors, terrific thunder-storms literally deluged 
the whole country. 

"These shocks," writes Mr. Hovey, ''have 
almost ruined the Republic of Ecuador." 

At various other points in South America 
these terrible earthquakes were felt, and the 
entire loss of life there is estimated at 30,- 
000 persons, and the loss of property at 
$300,000,000, 

About two months following the South 
American earthquakes, California was also 
visited, and at San Francisco several lives and 
much property were lost, while other places in 
California were affected. After another two 
months, Mexico also was severely shaken. 

Thus from Chili, far up toward Oregon, an 



164 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

extent of thousands of miles, the Western 
coast of North and South America and the 
neighboring islands, were most seriously af- 
fected by earthquakes, and alf within the com- 
pass of a few brief months. Whether these 
are to become frequent, it is presumed that 
no one can predict. But it certainly belongs 
to us to exercise great and special gratitude to 
the Father of mercies, that our own country 
seems to be, in great part, exempt from these 
terrible visitations. 




XXXIII. 



Ifoljcanojes* 



N a preceding sketch I observed that 
the cause of earthquakes and vol- 
canoes is probably much the same. 
Elastic forces of tremendous energy are oper- 
ating in the bowels of the earth, sometimes 
producing earthquakes, and sometimes forcing 
an opening through the crust of the earth 
from which are belched forth heated gases, 
sometimes in flames, "volumes of steam, erup- 
tions of ashes mixed with scoriae, and large 
stones which are often red-hot, and currents 
of melted rock, called lava." 

Such is a volcano, named thus from the Latin 
Vidcantis, the god of fire. The matter issuing, 
as above, through the earth's crust forms a 
hill or mountain around the opening or crater, 

i6k 



1 66 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

and this mountain, by the accumulation of mat- 
ter forced up from the earth's depths, increases 
to a height of hundreds, and, in many instances, 
thousands of feet. Thus we call a volcano a 
burning mountain ; that is, a mountain from 
whose top or sides issues fire, or smoke, or 
both ; and, in times of eruption, accompanied 
with lava, ashes, cinders, stones, etc. 

Of these volcanic mountains, Humboldt 
counts 407, although there are probably very 
many more than this number. Only a little 
more than half of the number are active vol- 
canoes, that is, continue to show signs of any 
thing issuing from their craters. 

There are, indeed, three classes of volcanoes : 
first, those which were once active, but have 
been a long time still; secondly, those which 
are intermittent, that is, sometimes active and 
at other times quiet ; and, thirdly, those which 
are always active. Of this last class, there are 
several that are celebrated, but their number is 
comparatively small. Of these and such of 
the intermittent volcanoes as have been in 
action within the last hundred years, there are 
reckoned 225. 

Of the more celebrated volcanoes of the 



VOLCANOES. 167 

globe we have Vesuvius, JEtna, Hecla, Strom- 
boliy Saugay, Cotopaxi, Mauna Loa, and others. 
Vesuvius, down to the present time, has had 
sixty great eruptions, some of which were 
grand in the extreme. Its first known erup- 
tion was in A. D. 79, when it issued such an 
amount of cinders and ashes that two cities in 
the neighborhood were buried from seventy to 
a hundred and twelve feet deep, with most of 
their inhabitants. In its great eruption of 
1632 the immense currents of lava overflowed 
most of the villages at its base. In 1779 the 
prodigious volumes of white smoke ascended 
in piles four times the height of the mountain, 
and stones and cinders were projected 2,000 
feet above the top of the mountain. Columns 
of fire also shot upward more than 10,000 feet. 
In the eruption of 1794 a stream of lava is- 
sued from the mountain containing more than 
46,000,000 of cubic feet. The eruption of 
1822 broke up the whole mountain-top, pro- 
ducing a chasm three miles around it, and 
2,000 feet deep. Recently great eruptions 
have occurred for several successive years. 

The great volcano, Mt. ^tna, is on the east- 
ern side of the island of Sicily. It consists 



1 68 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

of a mountain between 9,000 and 10,000 feet 
high, from which springs the great cone of the 
volcano, rising 1,100 or 1,200 feet higher still. 
A delightful country surrounds the mountain 
at its base. Above this, and belting the 
mountain, is a magnificent forest, five or six 
miles in width, at the upper side of which 
begins the region of barrenness and desolation. 

Eruptions of Mt. ^tna were known to the 
ancients as far back as 1,000 years before 
Christ. About sixty, in all, have been re- 
corded, and, in recent times, those of i66g, 
I755> ^I'^l^ 1792, and 1852, were the most, 
important. That of 1669, i^ connection with 
the earthquake accompanying it, destroyed 
sixteen villages, and several vast fissures were 
opened in the sides of the mountain, emitting 
smoke, fire, and tremendous bellowings. 

Cotopaxi is remarkable for being the loftiest 
volcano in the world. It is a mountain of 
Ecuador, South America, and its summit is 
near 19,000 feet above the ocean. Its figure is 
symmetrical, the crater nearly a mile in diam- 
eter, surrounded by a wall of rock below which, 
for nearly 5,000 feet, the mountain is in wrapped 
with permanent snow, so that its irregularities 



VOLCANOES. 169 . 

of surface are mostly concealed. The erup- 
tions are rare. In 1743 and 1744 were re- 
markable displays, when rocks of the size of 
small buildings were hurled from the crater to 
a distance of ten miles. The eruption of 1 768 
belched forth such an amount of ashes and 
cinders as turned day into night for miles 
round about, and at places twenty-five miles 
from the mountain the people were compelled 
to carry lanterns for the most of the day. In 
the eruption of 1803 its ashes were carried a 
hundred and thirty miles, and the explosions 
of the volcano were like heavy discharges of 
artillery. It then remained quiet for half a 
century, when in 1853, 1855, and 1856 it again 
became active. 

But probably the most remarkable volcano 
in the world is that of Kilauea, on Hawaii, of 
the Sandwich Islands. The mountain itself is 
called Mauna Loa, and is 16,000 feet in height. 
It has two craters, one upon the summit of 
the mountain, and the other, Kilauea, much 
lower down its sides. The two craters are 
about sixteen miles apart, and by frequent erup- 
tions, of late years, have poured out immense 
amounts of lava, sending prodigious jets to a 



I/O THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

great distance into the air, and with explosions 
heard forty miles away. In 1865 a huge lava 
jet rushed at white heat into the air, some- 
times a thousand feet, and continued thus for 
twenty days and nights without cessation, 
while the glare from the glowing lava, as it 
streamed aloft, was discernible by night at a 
distance of two hundred miles. The last great 
eruption, March, 1868, was alluded to in the 
preceding sketch. 

But we must close these notices, though the 
theme is so deeply interesting. You that 
would gain a clearer idea of earthquakes and 
volcanoes, and of the terribly destructive ef- 
fects of their action at different periods of 
time, should not fail to peruse Ponton's " Earth- 
quakes and Volcanoes," a recently published 
volume, full of interest and instruction. 

It will be very useful to my young friends to 
study well this great subject — one of the most 
wonderful of all the features of this wonderful 
globe which we, for a little space, are privileged 
to inhabit, and where, if we will open our eyes, 
unnumbered sublimities are constantly pre- 
sented to our observation. 



XXXIV. 



igawrns* 




LTHOUGH the earth is probably 
solid in the main, yet the subject of 
earthquakes and volcanoes, of which I 
have briefly treated, may remind us that it is 
not entirely so ; and while there are deep re- 
cesses where probably may be found the seats 
of those awful disturbances alluded to in my 
last three sketches, there are curious openings 
or caverns nearer the earth's surface, which 
may be said to constitute another interesting 
feature of the globe. 

The great Humboldt divided the earth's cav- 
erns into three classes : of these the first are 
fissures in the earth, having only one opening ; 
the second having openings at both ends ; 

the third and most numerous and interesting 

171 



1/2 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

class comprises those which have a succession 
of apartments opening into one another. 

This class of caverns has been found to 
exist in various countries of the earth, and 
some of them of very considerable extent and 
of exceeding interest. They frequently pre- 
sent a magnificent appearance, and are often 
ornamented with vast numbers of pillars some- 
times variegated in color, and in other in- 
stances, of transparent whiteness with glitter- 
ing stalactites in countless numbers hanging 
like huge icicles from the roof They are, in 
fact, formed in the same manner with icicles, 
and of the same substance, water; the dif- 
ference being that while the icicle is water 
frozen, the stalactite is water petrified, or turned 
partly into stone ; the water trickling through 
the "cavern roof being strongly impregnated 
with limestone. As only a part of the water 
is thus changed in passing down over the sta- 
lactite, the remainder dropping from its point 
forms another icicle, called a stalagmite, be- 
neath it upon the floor. This is inverted, the 
points of the one from the roof and that from 
the floor being toward each other. These two 
points, in process of time, meet each other and 



CAVERNS. 173 

become one, thus forming those sohd columns 
or pillars just alluded to, reaching from floor to 
ceiling of the subterranean apartment. The 
stalactites, however, do not always hang down 
in the form of an icicle, but, at times, take the 
shape of a great white sheet suspended from 
the top of the cavern. Sometimes this sheet 
is curved over a precipice, and thus has the as- 
pect of a fall or cascade, as if, in the very act 
of falling over the precipice, it was suddenly 
congealed before reaching the depths below. 
Then, again, to the columnar form just noticed 
and sometimes superadded branches extending 
out in diflerent directions, giving the appear- 
ance of glistening and magnificent groves of 
trees looming up amid the Plutonic landscape. 
In some instances, these caverns seem to be 
partially inhabited. Certain reptiles, appar- 
ently of the serpent kind, have sometimes been 
seen in them, and Humboldt found a cave of 
Venezuela to be a habitation of prodigious 
numbers of birds of a " nocturnal species," and 
their clamor within the cavern was so tremen- 
dous as to render frightful its gloomy re- 
cesses, and was so appalling to the Indian 
guides that they refused to proceed ; and the 



174 TI^iE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

traveler was obliged to retrace his steps. Also, 
many European caverns present the phenome- 
non of bones belonging to extinct species of 
animals, and some of them well preserved. 
Human bones have been found in some cav- 
erns, but this is easily accounted for by the fact 
that caverns have, in various ages of the world, 
been used as cemeteries. Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, with their wives, were thus buried. 

Several remarkable caverns exist in our own 
country ; as the celebrated Mammoth Cave in 
Kentucky, WeiVs Cave in Virginia, Salt Peter 
Cave in Missouri, and one or two others. The 
last named has been recently discovered, and 
is reported as promising to rival all the others 
in extent and beauty. The Mammoth Cave 
has been extensively explored, and travelers 
have journeyed through its various passages, 
windings, and apartments, to the distance of 
ten miles from the entrance, have boated on 
its dark river, feasted upon its eyeless fish, and 
witnessed many of its gloomy wonders. 




CAVERNS 



XXXV. 



OJCfes* 



EOLOGISTS apply the term Rock to 
all varieties of substances composing 
the earth's crust, whether they be hard 
or soft. In popular language, however, we use 
the term to express only those portions which 
have become indurated or hardened ; and thus 
we, in common style, distinguish between 
rocks which are hard, and soils which are soft. 
Geologists divide rocks into four great 
classes in reference to their orgin ; namely, 
the Aqueous, VolcaniCy Plutonic, and Meta- 
morphic. 

The aqueous rocks are such as are produced 
by the action of water. Here belong the lime- 
stone and sandstone rocks, also many of the 
slates, and gypsum. Of course, this class of 

175 



1/6 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

rocks is of prodigious extent upon the globe, 
and of great use to mankind. 

The volcanic rocks are such as were pro- 
duced by the action of fire, or subterranean 
heat. This is a far less extensive class of rocks 
than the aqueous. It comprises, of course, the 
lavas, and also the porphyries, greenstone, and 
the basalts, as well as numerous crystalline 
and columnal rocks. 

The plutoiiic rocks comprise the famous 
granites, which are called plutonic from the 
great depth in the earth at which they are re- 
puted to have been formed. The granites are 
also called primitive rocks, as having their 
geological place the lowest of all the rock, and, 
in fact, at depths too immense to be ascer- 
tained. Wherever we might please to pene- 
trate down through all other strata of rocks, 
we should come, at last, to granite, as the 
foundation of them all ; while still descending, 
we should encounter nothing but the same 
rock modified only by the influence of heat. 

Granite is a composite rock, being made up 
of several minerals, and has various hues, as 
red, white, black, or gray, according as one or 
another of these minerals predominate in the 



ROCKS. 177 

formation of the rock. For the same reason 
have been assigned to it several names or 
epithets, designating different quahties. 

The granite rock is extensively used as a 
building material in the construction of bridges 
and various engineering works, also public 
buildings and dwellings, while for such pur- 
poses its excellence is unrivaled. 

And as its use is thus extensive, so its 
abundance upon the globe is inexhaustible. 
Large extents of the earth's surface are covered 
with it. Countless and vast quarries are un- 
der our feet, and many a mountain is mainly 
composed of it, while it doubtless forms the 
axis or "backbone" of far-reaching mountain 
ranges. 

And who is He that has ordained the most 
useful rock to be, at the same time, the most 
abundant ? and from what principle did He so 
order ? 

The metamorphic rocks are a class compris- 
ing rocks of a highly crystalline texture. Mar- 
ble, quartz, serpentine, gneiss, certain slates, 
and other rocks belong here. 

Rocks, as we see them on the surface of the 
ground, in pastures and fields and of every 



178 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

shape and size, some fast and some loose, lime- 
stone, sandstone, granite, conglomerate, etc., 
what are all these? They are fragments of 
rock — debris separated from large masses of 
rock ; and by means of water, ice, and, perhaps, 
other agencies, were, in some age long past, 
swept over different regions and countries. 
Upon some localities — as, for instance, much 
of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, 
and Virginia — these fragments were drifted in 
large quantities, while farther west, and along 
the great Mississippi Valley, comparatively few 
were left as the great flood swept over it. 

All this occurred not in our day, nor since 
the present arrangement of terrestrial affairs 
was instituted ; and the aspiring youth, who 
would look up the " times and seasons," must 
pass far beyond what is termed the historic 
period, and peer amid the mysterious geolog- 
ical ages. 




THE HOCK AND THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 



XXXVI. 



Minjatals— Iron* 




INERAL is a name which is applied 
to any inorganic substance having a 
chemical composition. But for the 
various classes and orders into which mineralo- 
gists have arranged the mineral world, I must 
refer you to their several scientific treaties. 
It belongs to my province and purpose in 
these familiar sketches to glance at merely a 
few of the more prominent specimens. 

Included among minerals are gases and salts 
of chemistry. Here belong, also, water, car- 
bon, and sulphur. Here, too, are the metallic 
ores, as those of iron, zinc, arsenic, mercury, 
lead, tin, copper, and others. So, likewise, the 
metals themselves are reckoned as minerals, as 

well as those just named, as, also, the noble 

179 



l80 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

minerals — gold, silver, and platinum. The 
mineral world comprises, further, all the pre- 
cious gems, so much prized by both the civil- 
ized and uncivilized world. These are dia- 
monds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, turquoises, 
opals, also the topaz, garnet, amethyst, onyx, 
and others. 

Rich, then, is the earth in its mineral treas- 
ures, both such as are useful and such as are 
ornamental — while here is presented another 
capital feature, strongly illustrative of the 
munificent goodness of the great Architect. 
Let us note an example or two drawn from 
this untold abundance and variety of mineral 
wealth. 

As one of these, we, of course, select Iron, 
at the same time the most useful and the most 
abundant of the minerals. 

The application and uses of iron are innu- 
merable, and range from works of the finest 
and most delicate character, to such as are the 
most ponderous and massive. Its capacity ex- 
tends from a thread like to the finest gossamer 
to the huge anchor, fitted to hold to its moor- 
ings a ship of 10,000 tons. Hence, its adapta- 
tions are almost endless. "The most massive 



MINERALS— IRON. 1 8 1 

metallic works," says one, " are made of it, and, 
also, the most delicate instruments, as the 
hair-springs of watches, in which the metal 
attains a far higher value, weight for weight, 
than that of gold itself" The same writer 
adds that " no other material is so enhanced in 
price by the valuable qualities imparted to it 
by labor. A bar of iron worth ^5, is worth 
^10.50 when made into horseshoes, ^55 in the 
form of needles, ^3,285 in penknife-blades, 
^29,480 in shirt-buttons, and ^250,000 in 
balance-springs of watches." 

Look around you, within doors and without, 
and mark the universal prevalence of this won- 
derful substance. Note the cutlery of every 
shape, and sort, and purpose — the furniture 
from kitchen to parlor, the house itself Sur- 
vey your own persons and select the garment, 
large or small, which has not received the 
touch of iron. Pass now into the street and 
look upon the great city ; what is there that 
has escaped its contact.^ The stones of the 
sidewalk, and of every massive edifice — every 
window, and door, and sign, and lamp-post, and 
ornament, and merchandise — iron is either 
there or has been there. Glance at the ten 



1 82 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

thousand vehicles, from the humblest cart to 
the lordliest chariot, survey every harness, and 
every horse's hoof; what of all these separate 
from iron? Mount the cars, and fly over the 
country. But, as you ride, what is at your 
elbow, overhead, before, behind, beneath? and 
what is the appropriate epithet of that mighty 
"horse" at whose heels you are rushing as if 
'' on the wings of the wind ?" Pause at the 
farm-house, and glance at plow, and harrow, 
and hoe, and rake, and pitchfork, and crow- 
bar, and shovel, and scythe, and mower, and 
reaper, and thrasher, and winnower, and all 
the rest, and then ask the prosperous farmer 
what he would do but for iron? Ask the same 
of every mechanic, every manufacturer, every 
tradesman, every teacher, every author, every 
soldier, every ruler, and if there be any other 
occupation or profession, useful or otherwise. 
Propose to yourself a foreign voyage, and go 
aboard ship. But you never would venture 
away to sea unless satisfied that your ship had 
within itself the unyielding strength which 
iron alone can insure. 

But enough. It is a trite observation to say 
that of all the minerals embraced in the bowels 



MINERALS— IRON. 1 83 

of the earth, iron is incomparably the most 
useful. None is applied to half as many uses, 
none is used in half so great an abundance. 

And right here note carefully another of the 
divine correspondencies. While, on the one 
hand, the use of iron is so abundant, the sup- 
ply, on the other hand, is literally inexhausti- 
ble. The earth teems with iron, and its 
abundance is also widely diffused over many 
lands. As a partial exhibit of this abundance, 
I subjoin the report from several countries of 
the yield of iron for the year 1861, presented 
at the International Exhibition of 1862. The 
product in 

Great Britain was . . , . 3,712,390 tons. 

France, 900,000 " 

Prussia, . . . . . . 307,400 " 

Russia, 250,000 " 

Sweden, 215,000 " 

Spain, . . . . . . 50,000 " 

Italy, 38,000 " 

United States, .... 750,000 " 

That is, in these countries alone, six and a 
quarter million tons of iron were taken from 
the earth in a single year, and, of course, we 
may reasonably infer that something like this 
vast amount was, in an equal time, put to use. 



XXXVII. 



l§!oaU 




MONG the mineral treasures of the 
earth, that which ranks next in im- 
portance to iron, is probably coaL 
Coal is one of the geological formations 
comprised in the earth's crust, and it exists in 
the shape of layers of greater or less thickness, 
and which are termed coal-measures by the 
geologist. It is of vegetable origin, and may 
be regarded as fossil wood, which, from being 
long and deeply buried in the earth, has under- 
gone certain chemical changes, and was thus 
transformed into coal. 

As found in our own country, there are three 

qualities or kinds of coal, distinguished by the. 

epithets Anthracite, Bituminous, and Cannel. 

Of these, anthracite is the oldest, hardest, and 

184 



COAL. 



185 



densest, kindles with more difficulty, but burns /J/M^ 
the longest, and without flame, and affords the 
greatest amount of heat. 

BiUmtinous coal is so called from its being 
charged with bitumen, which causes it to burn 
more readily than anthracite, and in burning 
it emits a bright flame, as well as smoke, and 
a tarry odor. From this, coal oil is extracted, 
and illuminating gas is manufactured. 

Cannel coal is highly bituminous, but of a 
closer texture than the common bituminous 
coal, and more easily kindled, but of much less 
extent. 

The anthracite coal is produced mainly in 
Pennsylvania, east of the Alleghanies, while 
the bituminous coal, commencing west of thdr ^iM 
mountain range, spreads extensively along 
many of the States of the Mississippi Valley. 
These immense coal-fields extend through 
Pennsylvania, Southern Ohio, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, into Alabama; another great coal-field 
occupies the most of Illinois and Western In- 
diana ; still another occupies parts of Iowa and 
Missouri ; another field the central portion of 
Michigan, while there is also a small coal re- 
gion in Rhode Island ; yet another great coal 



1 86 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

area is comprised within Nova Scotia and New 
Brunswick. 

Crossing to Europe we find coal-fields un- 
derlying about one-tenth of Great Britain, or 
nearly 12,000 square miles. In many of the 
other European countries coal is found, though 
much less extensively. China, Persia, Hindo- 
stan, and several other Asiatic countries pro- 
duce it in abundance ; also, Australasia, and 
many of the islands of the great Eastern 
Archipelago. 

You may see in the following table the coal 
areas of this country and Europe : 



Great Britain, 


. 11,859 


squar 


e miles. 


Spain, ... 


3.408 






France, . . . 


. • 1,719 






Belgium, 


518 






British Provinces, 


. 18,000 






Pennsylvania, . 


. . 15,437 






Twelve other States, . 


. 133.132 







Thus, in these countries alone, there are 
nearly 200,000 square miles of coal area, three- 
fourths of which belong to our own territory. 

It is computed that about 150,000,000 of 
tons of coal are annually dug out of the earth. 
About two-thirds of this amount is mined in 
Great Britain, where coal is more extensively 
used and more highly valued than in any other 



COAL. 187 

part of the world. The amount annually ex- 
ported from England to foreign countries has 
exceeded, up to 1850, the entire annual prod- 
uct of American mining ; and it is calcula- 
ted that the coal-fields of England and Wales 
could furnish its usual supply, of about eighty 
or ninety million tons annually, for a thousand 
years yet to come. But greater things than 
this could be told of American coal-fields ; to 
exhaust which it is quite safe to say that more 
than a million of years would be required. 

Such are the riches of coal as well as of iron, 
two great sister interests, destined to go hand 
in hand so long as the world shall survive, and 
to stand among the mighty pillars of an ever- 
advancing civilization, and of an unprecedented 
material, intellectual, moral, and national pros- 
perity. 




XXXVIII, 



$j:iils. 




soils 



T is natural, after discanting upon 
rocks and minerals, to speak of Soils, 
inasmuch as from rocks the several 
are, to a considerable extent, derived. 



Soils are the daughters of rocks, and come 
from the disintegration of the latter, the dis- 
integrated materials being mixed with decayed 
vegetable matter. The process of disintegra- 
tion is carried on partly by chemical action 
upon the rocks, by different agencies in the at- 
mosphere, and partly by the wearing action of 
water either in a fluid or a frozen states Some- 
times the soil of a given locality is formed 
from disintegrated materials which have been 
brought by flowing water or glacier action from 

a great distance, as in the case of what are 

i88 



SOILS. 189 

called alluvial soils, or river "bottom lands/* 
and, also, what are known as drift soils. But 
most soils are found adjoining or overlying the 
rocks from which they have been produced. 

Soils are of very various depths, from a sin- 
gle inch or two to several feet. I speak here 
of the special soil that affords nourishment to 
plants. Beneath this occurs an immediate 
and decisive change, and we come to a stratum 
of earth, or rock, or both, which is unmixed 
with decayed vegetable matter, and is, of 
course, unfitted for the support of plants. 
This is termed subsoil, and is generally of a 
lighter color than the fruitful soil lying above 
it. But this barren subsoil may also be made 
fertile by being turned up and exposed for a 
time to the fertilizing influences of the atmos- 
phere ; and thus it is that many soils, originally 
thin and partially unproductive, are rendered 
deeper and permanently better. 

Soils comprise about eighteen elements, 
while yet only four of these go to constitute 
their principal bulk, the others existing in only 
minute quantities. The four principal elements 
are silica, aluminay lime, and humus. Thus, 
from silica we have the silicious or sandy soils, 



1 90 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

from alumina, the clayey soils, from lime, the 
calcareous soils, and from humus, the humous 
soils, these last being made up, in great part, 
of decayed organic matter, vegetable or ani- 
mal, or both. 

Neither of these several soils, by itself, is 
best suited to agricultural purposes. The 
farmer, for instance, delights not in a soil that 
is " too sandy " or " too clayey." The former, 
though easy to cultivate, yet often lacks fertil- 
ity, and is too little retentive of moisture — the 
rain sinking easily and quickly through it. 
On the other hand, the soil that is too clayey 
is heavy and laborious to work, too retentive 
of water, and thus, under the sun's influence, 
is prone to become baked into clods instead of 
dissolving into that mellowness of texture so 
pleasant to the hand of cultivation. 

Thus it follows that, so far as sand and clay 
are concerned, that soil is nearest to perfection 
which holds both in proper mixture. Then 
the facile sand mollifies the stiflhess of the 
clay, while the retentive clay remedies the 
leakiness of the sand. This mixture of the 
two soils constitutes what is termed loam^ and 
the result is a clay loam or a sandy loamy 



SOILS. 191 

according as the clay or sand predominates. 
The skillful farmer, in estabUshing himself, 
will, if possible, secure both of these soils, and 
then, as you shall visit him and roam over his 
harvest fields, you will observe his wheat wav- 
ing in beauty over the broad clay loams, while 
the barley, rye, and various root crops over- 
spread the sand loams of the ample domain. 

Calcareous soils are sometimes clayey, though 
more generally sandy, while the hjimoits soil is 
different from either, being of a "spongy and 
elastic texture," and of a color dark almost to 
blackness, being composed mainly of decayed 
vegetable matter. You may, at any time, 
notice it, as you roam in the woods, where, be- 
neath the fallen leaves, it lies in its perfection, 
and is one of the richest of all soils. 

Various are the modes by which soils are 
improved and thus rendered more productive, 
and Science has come in to lend her powerful 
aid to an improvement so important. The 
grand desideratum is to ascertain the special 
lack of any soil in elements requisite for 
production, and the requisite supplying of 
those elements. Hence, the proper mixture of 
soils as above alluded to. Hence, also, the 



192 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

application of the appropriate manures and in 
appropriate quantities. Hence, too, drainage 
where water is excessive, and irrigation where 
it is deficient. And so it has, in many an 
instance, come to pass that a wilderness has 
literally been turned, into a fruitful field, and 
the desert has been made to rejoice and blos- 
som as the rose. 

Nor should my young friends lightly pass 
over this great matter of the earth's soils. 
Hence came our varied sustenance, and all 
those useful and delicious fruits by which we 
are daily regaled and refreshed. How wonder- 
ful as well as benevolent that by the mysteri- 
ous combinations of a few slight elements and 
agencies, all this prodigious world of utility, 
luxury, and beauty is elaborated, advanced, and 
perfected! Here most marvelously the great 
God becomes a partner and fellow-worker with 
man. We are to prepare these soils, plant and 
cultivate them, and as we do so, he intervenes 
to spread them all over with the corresponding 
harvest. " He opens His hand and supplies 
the wants of every living thing." 



XXXIX. 



grrasses* 



^^||RASS is a general name given to a 
^^1 great variety of plants, and in its larg- 
^^ia est sense comprehends the several 
grains, as maize, wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice, 
etc. These are more generally called the ce- 
real grasses, from Ceres^ the Greek and Roman 
Goddess of grain and harvests. 

What are commonly called grasses in dis- 
tinction from the above, are such plants as 
naturally spring up in the field, pasture, and 
common, and clothe the ground as with a ver- 
dant and graceful garment, and forming a sod 
of more or less firmness. While the cereal 
grasses seem designed more especially for 
human sustenance, the common grasses are 
equally adapted and useful as food for many of 

13 193 



194 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the domestic and wild animals. A few grasses, 
however, seem to be of little or no use for food, 
while some are of a poisonous character. Or- 
dinarily, as grasses grow in pasture-lands, sev- 
eral species are found flourishing together; 
and this is to be placed among the benevolent 
arrangements of the Divine Providence, that 
thus provides an agreeable variety for beast, 
as it has also done for man. The horse and 
the ox, as they graze abroad upon hill, vale, or 
prairie, are not, as might be supposed, con- 
demned to a perpetual sameness of food and 
taste ; a pleasant variety is spread out before 
them as well as for us, and to them, also, it is 
given to select such viands as may be most 
agreeable to their palate, or instinctively to 
feed upon those varieties which are best 
adapted to their present condition of health. 
And flocks and herds spreading themselves 
abroad over the green pasture-lands, all ''re- 
ceiving their meat from God," present to the 
eye one of the pleasant scenes of the world. 
It is one of the innumerable pictures sketched 
for us in living colors by the great Artist, who 
"covereth the heaven with clouds, who pre- 
pareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to 



GRASSES. 195 

grow upon the mountains, who giveth to the 
beast his food, and to the young ravens which 
cry." 

And equally beautiful is the picture, so often 
seen, of the more cultivated grasses as they 
bloom and wave along the rich and fertile 
meadow-lands. Such are the several clover 
varieties, the red-top, the prairie, and blue 
grasses, and especially the timothy, that prince 
of food-plants for domestic animals, and whose 
tall stems and ample heads, as they bend and 
sway before the breeze, remind you of gentle 
billows gliding over Summer seas. These are 
the more prominent grasses which the farmer 
transforms into hay, and lays it up in his store- 
houses and barns for the Winter food of his 
flocks when they can no longer graze abroad. 
Upon this, all along the Winter months, they 
feed and flourish, sheltered, meanwhile, in their 
sunny yards from the fierce north-western 
blasts, or gather within their stalls secure from 
the wild snow-storm sweeping afar over their 
forsaken pasture-lands. 

" Now, Shepherd, to your helpless charge be kmd ; 
Baffle the raging year, and fill their pens 
With food at will ; lodge them below the storm, 



196 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

And watch them strict ; for from the bellowmg east, 
In this dire season, oft the whirlwind's wing 
Sweeps up the burden of whole wint'ry plains 
In one wide waft, and o'er the hapless flocks, 
Hid in the hollow of two neighboring hills, 
The billowy tempest whelms ; till upward urged. 
The valley to a shining mountain swells, 
Tipped with a wreath high curling in the sky." 

Thomson. 

Aside from all ideas of food for man and 
beast, what would our world be unadorned 
with this universal, spontaneous, and beautiful 
carpeting spread abroad by the great, kind 
hand of Nature's God.^^ Think of one great, 
bare, bald world, meeting the eye from every 
direction ; no green spot, no little oasis amid 
the interminable desert, no blade of grass, no 
leaf or stem or fragrant flower, a wide-spread, 
ghastly, unsightly Sahara from pole to pole ! 
Such an earth might do for lizards, for hideous 
and dust-eating serpents, and other reptile 
monsters, and for ravenous beasts of prey, but 
man would soon pine, and sicken, and per- 
ish there, and so the great Father has made 
for us a better and more suitable provision. 

" He makes the grass the hills adorn, 
He clothes the smiling fields with corn. 
The beasts with food His hands supply, 
And the young ravens when they cry." 



XL. 



Tr^^s* 




ROM g7'ass, the beautiful carpeting 
of the earth, the transition is natural 
to the trees with which this same 
earth is also adorned. Indeed, if the grass 
may be contemplated as the carpet of this 
splendid apartment of nature, trees may not 
inaptly be designated as a prominent part of 
tho. furmtii7^e placed upon its magnificent floor. 
And who shall adequately picture the superb 
beauty of these pieces of furniture.^ A tree! 
Look at it and consider it well. There it 
stands in its gay and stately pride, and invites 
your attention. Suppose you never before 
looked upon such an object ; what would be 
your sensations — a foundation deeply rooted 

and firmly intrenched so that the strength of 

197 



198 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

a thousand hands could hardly disturb it? 
Thence ascends that tall, straight column, 
slightly and regularly tapering as the eye fol- 
lows it upward. There is nothing hollow or 
spurious, deceptive or weak, in that shaft. A 
hundred tons might rest upon it safely. Now 
contemplate those branches springing in each 
direction from the column. How firmly and 
intimately are they united with it! How 
gracefully they curve upward and outward and 
then downward ! How curious and beautiful 
their own branchings and sub-branchings ! 
How wonderful the foliage overspreading them 
all ! So with all the branches, as, gradually di- 
minishing in size, they approach the summit of 
the leafy structure. And now, standing at a lit- 
tle distance, glance at the tout ensemble of this 
vegetable erection ; contemplate its wealth of 
foliage, the rich variety in the lines, and curves, 
and arches of its frame-work, the quiet bending 
of the thousand branches and little world of 
leaves as the Summer zephyr breathes softly 
through them, the unspeakable gracefulness 
and dignity of the entire aspect and bearing. 
This is one of God's trees whereof he has 
ordered countless millions, and spread them 




THE TREE. 



TREES. 199 

lavishly along the earth, and of every conceiv- 
able and inconceivable variety ; large and 
small, tall and humble, deciduous and ever- 
green, fruit-bearing and ornamental, hardy and 
tender, and if there be any other terms ex- 
pressive of their countless variations. Some- 
times a specimen stands out by itself, solitary 
and alone like a monument reared in the midst 
of a plain ; sometimes two or three stand up 
together, as when so many neighbors meet and 
converse with each other. Sometimes they 
are grouped in lovely groves of more or less 
extent ; and then, again, they spread out in 
immense forests, whose dimensions must be 
measured by leagues, and amid whose somber 
shades roam the wild beast and savage or bar- 
barian men. 

Trees, like the grass which they over- 
shadow, are the spontaneous and normal out- 
growth of* the soil. Their seeds are every- 
where, save in barren deserts, and every-where, 
unless prevented, they spring up and occupy 
the landscape. They form a capital feature of 
the habitable world, and have done so from 
the beginning; and they and the green grass 
comprise the present earth's earliest life. For, 



200 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

before man or beast began to be, God said, 
"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit 
after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the 
earth, and it was so/' And the first pair saw, 
as one of their earliest visions of Paradise, 
"every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 
good for food." 

And down all the ages trees have had prom- 
inent notice, and been especially loved and 
celebrated, and been intimately interwoven 
with great events, while with their towering 
trunks and graceful branches, have been 
wreathed ten thousand times ten thousand of 
man's deepest, tenderest associations. Under 
a palm-tree dwelt the ancient Deborah ; and 
up among its foliage ascended the glad notes 
of her famous song of victory ; while the " trees 
planted by rivers of water," " the tall oaks of 
Bashan," "the cedars of Lebanon," "fruitful fig- 
trees," "trees of frankincense," and the "tree 
of life," are sources of resplendent imagery in 
the Hebrew poetry. So also in classic song, 
and in the modern poetry, as well as in all his- 
tory, trees have asserted their rightful promi- 
nence. Art has attested and imitated their 



TREES. 201 

loveliness, and civilization has lauded their 
beauty as well as their utility, while taste and 
culture have ever pointed to them as an indis- 
pensable and capital ornament of the perfect 
landscape. No pleasant home nor garden of 
delight is deemed possible without their pres- 
ence ; and their waving forms, and varied mu- 
sic, and refreshing shades are of themselves 
well-nigh sufficient to transform the unsightly 
waste into a paradise. Children love and re- 
vere their stately forms. Youth and beauty 
linger delightedly within their grateful shad- 
ows, and old age is never weary of sitting be- 
neath those same branches that used to wave 
above them in younger and brighter days. 




XLI. 



^se$ of Tre^s* 




F the use and indispensable need of 
trees as an ornament, we have writ- 
ten sufficiently; but they have other 
great uses, some of which are entirely obvious 
to every one. From many varieties, as already 
hinted, we have fruit in abundance,, and "good 
for food," as well as delicious to the taste. 
Nor can there be a clearer proof of the Divine 
goodness and benevolence than what is fur- 
nished in the wondrous variety of fruit-trees, 
and the variety, excellence, and usefulness of 
the fruits which they produce for the benefit 
and happiness of mankind. 

Another vital use of trees is the ///^/ which 
they furnish. Having served their purposes as 
trees, whether for ornament, fruit, or other uses, 

202 



USES OF TREES. 203 

they may be converted into fuel, and thus, be- 
sides all the other useful purposes to which 
fuel is applied, serve to produce in our houses, 
in Winter-time, the genial warmth of Summer, 
and create a paradise where otherwise there 
would be frost and utter desolation. Hence it 
is not too much to say of trees that their 
excellence is prominent at all seasons. In 
Spring-time they delight us by the putting 
forth of their varied foliage and blossomings ; 
in Summer they refresh us with their grateful 
shade ; in Autumn they present us with an 
endless variety of fruits ; and in Winter they 
warm our habitations and fill them with gayety 
and gladness. 

So, also, it is hardly necessary to name the 
immense use of trees for furnishing htmber as 
well as fuel. From trees come the timbers, 
joists, boards, shingles, etc., which enter into 
the structure of buildings ; and from trees, as 
a principal material, are constructed vast cities, 
the myriads of ships that sail over seas, lakes, 
and rivers, the bridges that span mighty 
streams, the carriages of every sort that roll 
along the streets and roads of the world, the 
fences that, through hundreds of thousands of 



204 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

linear miles, make the boundaries of public 
and private inclosures, the foundations over 
which roll all the locomotives and cars on 
earth, the furniture adorning the houses and 
palaces of all nations, and a multitude of 
minor uses innumerable. 

Yet further, trees are of great use — greater 
than what is generally known and appre- 
ciated—for sheltering cultivated lands, and 
especially the lands devoted to the cultivation 
of fruits. They present a strong barrier 
against the rushing in of violent and sweeping 
winds, often so disastrous to fruits and fruit- 
trees ; and thus they do much to temper the 
atmosphere and climate of localities over- 
spread with orchards and gardens, and con- 
tribute essentially to their fruitfulness as well 
as safety. 

And trees and forests have much to do with 
the adequate amount of water for the proper 
moisture of the soil, and the production of 
crops adapted to the sustenance of man and 
beast. Forest trees, and the ground which 
they shade, are one of the sources of evap- 
oration from which rain-clouds are formed. 
Water falling from the clouds into the world 



USES OF TREES. 205 

of foliage much of which is shaded from the 
sun, and falUng also upon the shaded ground 
beneath, abundant moisture from rains is re- 
tained here long after it is dried away from 
neighboring localities that are cleared of trees 
and exposed to the sun's rays. Thus the forest 
often presents a scene of moisture when all is 
dry and parched outside. Hence, from the 
imm.ense expanse of moist leaves and branches 
and land surface, the process of evaporation 
goes forward as from an extended surface of 
water, contributing to those falls of rain so 
necessary to vegetation, and to the bringing 
forward the fruits of the earth. All this has, 
in repeated instances, been amply illustrated 
by the disastrous and almost fatal influence 
upon cultivated regions of country arising from 
laying bare large extents of forest lands, and 
thus exposing them, as well as the rest of the 
territory, to the rapidly drying influence of the 
sun's rays. 

To the above uses of trees might be added 
their direct salutary influence upon the at- 
mosphere by aiding to temper any injurious 
excess of carbonic acid, and probably by other 
means more subtile and obscure. 



XLII. 



Tides. 




I IDES are the alternate rising and fall- 
ing of the ocean waters, as well as of 
rivers and bays communicating with 
them, and which are nearly on the sea level. 
The rising of the waters is called the Flood 
tide, and the falling is called the Ebb tide. 
The highest elevation of the water is called 
High tide, the lowest depression. Low tide ; 
and the difference between high and low water 
varies in different circumstances and places. 
In New York harbor, for example, the mean 
difference is about four feet, while in Boston 
harbor this difference is nearly ten feet; at 
Liverpool, it is 15 J feet ; at London, 22 feet ; at 
Bristol, England, 33 feet ; in the Bay of Fundy, 

sometimes 100 feet. 

206 



TIDES. 207 

The tides are caused by the attraction of 
the sun and moon, especially the latter, upon 
the great ocean of waters. Though the moon 
is so much smaller than the sun, yet its greater 
proximity to the earth gives it a much greater 
attractive force upon the water than what is 
^exerted by the sun. Hence, the great Tidal 
WavBy so called, accompanies the moon in its 
circuit round the earth, every twenty-four hours 
and fifty minutes. The great elevation of the 
waters, however, is not precisely under the 
moon, but, owing to their feig^gti inertia, the 
tidal wave or swell lags somewhat behind the 
moon's progress, and thus may be said more 
properly to follow than to accompany her on 
her course. The difference of time between 
that of the moon on a given meridian and that 
of the summit of the tidal wave coming under 
the same meridian, is from two to three hours. 
Within the space of twenty-four hours and 
fifty minutes there are two high and two low 
tides, instead of one of each. If it is high 
tide, for instance, at Sandy Hook this morning 
at 6 o'clock, it will be high tide there again at 
twenty-five minutes past six this evening, and 
again to-morrow morning at fifty minutes past 



208 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

six. You will ask how this can be when the 
tides are principally caused by the moon's at- 
traction 6f the waters, and when the moon 
passes over them only once instead of twice in 
the twenty-four hours and fifty minutes ? This 
is because there is always a high tide at the 
same time on opposite sides of the globe. 
Hence, soon after the moon is over Boston, it 
will be high tide there, and a little more than 
twelve hours afterward, when the moon is un- 
der Boston, it will be high tide there again. 
Two causes seem to operate to produce this 
phenomenon : first, that when the moon is over 
Boston, it not only attracts the waters to a cer- 
tain degree, but it attracts the whole solid 
earth, though to a less degree. This tends to 
withdraw the land measurably from the water 
on the opposite side of the globe, thus render- 
ing the water deeper, or causing a high tide 
there. It is supposed, also, that this opposite 
high tide is aided by the greater centrifugal 
force operating there by the revolution of the 
earth upon its axis. 

The tides are not always equally high. On 
the contrary, twice a month there are two 
tides unusually high, and two unusually low; 



TIDES. 209 

and they occur on this wise. At new moon, 
you have noticed that the sun and moon are in 
the same direction from the earth, and, conse- 
quently, their attractive force upon the earth 
is harmonious ; that is, they draw in the same 
direction, and, of course, with their combined 
force. This combined force always attracts 
a heavy tidal wave, and, on these occasions, 
the tide is two feet higher at New York, 
and at Boston more than three feet higher 
than the usual tides. A similar phenome- 
non occurs a fortnight afterward when the 
moon is full, and is in opposition to the sun. 
On the other hand, when the moon is at her 
first and third quarters, the sun and moon 
drawing at right angles with each other, and 
the force of each, consequently, hindering in- 
stead of helping the other, the tides are then 
lowest, and are called Neap tides. 

As we have noticed above, bays and rivers, 
in numerous cases, are affected by ocean tides, 
being alternately filled and emptied every 
twelve and a half hours. Rivers that are af- 
fected by the tides are seen to change their 
current once in six hours, flowing up as the 
tide is rising, and down as it is falling. Thus 

14 



210 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the Connecticut River is influenced by the 
tide as far as Hartford, and the Hudson as far 
as Albany ; while the great tributaries of the 
Mississippi never meet the tide, and the main 
river itself, with its world of waters, seems 
scarcely to feel its influence. As you might 
suppose, high and low tides are always later in 
bays and rivers than the ocean tides, the dif- 
ference of time being, according to circum- 
stances, from one to several hours. 



XLIII. 



xvets. 




E have before written touching the 
great ocean of waters that is com- 
puted to cover nearly three-quarters 
of the globe. Also, we have noticed that evap- 
oration, constantly going on from this vast 
water surface, forms clouds in the atmosphere, 
which, being drifted by the winds over the 
land, fall in the shape of rain. A portion of 
the water thus falling upon the ground sinks 
to considerable depths until it reaches a stra- 
tum of the earth, or some rocky bed, which 
it can not penetrate, and thus are formed 
those underground pools and reservoirs which 
are the sources of innumerable springs and 
fountains. Another portion of the water that 
falls to the ground from the clouds flows off in 

211 



212 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the shape of brooks and rivulets, great num- 
bers of which, running into a single channel, 
form a river, while this, continually receiving 
tributary streams from right and left as it goes 
on its downward course, often becomes a deep 
and mighty stream, sufficient to float large ves- 
sels, and finally flows into the ocean. This 
great water operation is going on without a 
moment's cessation over the globe, Hke as, in 
animals, the blood is perpetually issuing from 
the heart and returning to it again. 

The great rivers of the earth, in most every 
case, have their origin among the lofty mount- 
ain ranges. Thus the Amazon, Orinoko, and 
La Plata, of South America, commence among 
the Andes ; the Missouri, in the Rocky 
Mountains ; the Indus and Ganges among the 
Himalayas, and the Danube among the Alps. 
Some famous rivers, however, begin immedi- 
ately from lakes of which they form the out- 
let. Thus the Mississippi starts from Lake 
Itasca, the St. Lawrence from Lake Ontario, 
the Rhone from. Lake Geneva, and the Jordan 
from the Lake or Sea of Tiberias. 

Rivers have ever been esteemed among the 
interesting and beautiful features of the earth. 



RIVERS. 213 

In fact, no landscape, however attractive other- 
wise, seems to be perfect, in which water 
scenery, either river or lake, is wanting. A 
valley stretching between lofty highlands is 
often beautiful ; but it is doubly so if, per- 
chance, a gentle river is seen meandering 
through its pleasant groves and verdant mead- 
ows. So, also, rivers are useful as they are 
beautiful. If navigable, they afford channels 
of commerce from one country to another, or 
between different and distant parts of the 
same country. Consider the vast commerce 
floating upon the Mississippi and its numerous 
and ample tributaries. On the other hand, 
when navigation is obstructed by falls or 
rapids, there is often presented eligible oppor- 
tunities for water-power operating numerous 
manufactories of every desirable and useful 
product. Yet further, rivers conduce largely 
to fertilize those regions of country through 
which they flow, bearing along with their 
waters, and mingled with them, prodigious 
amounts of rich soil, which, in the frequent 
overflow of their banks, they deposit upon the 
lands on either side, rendering them among 
the most fertile and productive in the world. 



214 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

In some instances, these overflows are annual, 
as in the case of the Nile, the Ganges, parts 
of the Mississippi and its tributaries, and in- 
numerable other streams. The serpentine and 
winding course characterizing most rivers 
greatly assists in extending this advantage, as 
they thus traverse a much wider extent of 
country and multiply their fertilizing influ- 
ences accordingly. 

So interesting and ornamental are they that 
we need not wonder that rivers, as well as 
mountains, are often alluded to in the Holy 
Scriptures. The first Paradise was not with- 
out its rivers, and the second Paradise is pict- 
ured to us as adorned with the river of the 
water of life; while the Hebrew poetry sings 
of a river the strearns whereof make glad the 
city of God. 




XLIV. 



^ataractSt 



IVERS often move with a calm, full, 
and uninterrupted current. But this 
is far from being universal. Some- 
times, in their passage toward the ocean, the 
waters come to an inclined plane, down which 
they rush with great velocity. These are called 
Rapids, and form a dangerous pass for boats, 
though often descended thus where the water 
is sufficiently deep. 

Then again, rivers, in many instances, pour 
over precipices extending entirely across the 
streams. These are called Cataracts, and some 
of these, by reason of their magnitude, are 
counted among the wonders of the world. 
One of the most remarkable of cataracts is 
our own Niagara, and, consequently, a few 

215 



2l6 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

words about this may suffice mainly for the 
whole. 

Niagara Falls, as you know, occur in the 
great river of the same name, joining the two 
lakes, Erie and Ontario. This river is between 
thirty and forty miles in length, and about 
twenty-three miles down the stream from Lake 
Erie is the great cataract. The river is full, 
and flows calmly onward, and as you glide 
peacefully down the stream it might be one of 
the last and most unlikely thoughts in your 
mind that you were approaching the brink bf 
the most awful cataract on earth. But pres- 
ently the boat is urging ashore, and none too 
soon ; for, as you glance down the river, you 
see, at the distance of apparently only a brief 
mile below, the mists towering up from the 
cataract, and the rapids are about to commence. 
Woe to him who, for a single yard, glides over 
their crest and begins the hideous descent! 
He is now drifting swiftly along, and it is ex- 
tremely doubtful whether he will ever reach 
either shore. The rapids commence, it may be, 
about a mile above the cataract ; and here the 
great river widens and becomes an expansive, 
disturbed, and swift-descending sea of waters. 



CATARACTS. 21/ 

A quarter of a mile, more or less, above the cat- 
aract, this rushing sea is pierced by an island, 
which divides it unequally, pushing the smaller 
division toward the right, and the larger toward 
the left. This island extends fully down to the 
cataract, and its lower end forms a part of the 
huge precipice, which, by an irregular line, ex- 
tends sheer across this mighty river, and over 
the whole of which, except the end of the said 
island, the great flood was plunging, roaring ^(^^"^ 
down forever. 

From the right or American shore, and some 
rods above the fall, a bridge passes to the isl- 
and, planted directly over the rapids, by what 
engineering process, as, in these sketches, I 
am dwelling with Nature alone, it becomes me 
not now to inquire. Tread softly on that 
bridge, as, on your visit to the cataract, you 
shall cross it and look down, meanwhile, upon 
the wild, swift, dashing floods rushing beneath 
your feet. No harm if, as I did, you cross 
nimbly ; for the difference of a moment, on 
some river and mountain passes, has been as 
important as life and death. And in returning, 
no harm if, as I did, you determine to tread 
those planks nevermore. And when upon the 



2l8 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

island, tread carefully there also. Go not too 
near those fearful shores, for there is no pleas- 
ant beach, no calm and quiet eddy, no retreat- 
ing tide. The banks are full forever, and the 
waters are rushing by as if madly bent on 
destruction itself Keep back from touching 
them with hand or foot. Once topple over and 
all is lost. Beware, also, of one or another 
little stream meandering swiftly from above 
through the island. I still hold in painful 
memory that dear little girl whom a senseless 
youth once held sportively over such a rivulet 
until she slipped from his hold and fell. In his 
mortal agony he plunged in to rescue her, but 
the current was swift and the passage brief, 
and both were lost. 

Of the great cataract itself, it has impressed 
me that little can be said in the way of effect- 
ive and satisfactory description. There it is ; 
a great river tumbling over an enormous prec- 
ipice, which, including the island precipice, 
may be a mile across. The island divides the 
cataract ; the American division being more 
than a thousand feet wide, and the other or 
Canada division more than two thousand. The 
former descends one hundred and sixty-four 



CATARACTS. 219 

feet, the latter ten or fifteen feet less. The 
American division, though not half so wide, 
nor, at its crest, half so deep, is yet a more 
finished cataract, as it respects the eye observ- 
ing it. It rolls over on a line nearly straight ; 
its depth of water is not such but that it can 
break in descending into a sheet white, vast, 
and glorious. Also, the entire descent is visi- 
ble and appreciated. The crest aloft and the 
base below are both naked to the eye, and the 
whole is before you as from a mountain sum- 
mit an approaching storm-cloud is visible from 
zenith to horizon. 

Different is the other and greater fall. The 
line of its crest is an irregular curve — its apex 
up stream, and nearer to the island than to the 
Canadian shore. Within this awful curve is 
the great flood, and as it rolls over and down it 
looks deep, very deep ! how deep no human 
being has ever measured or ever will. Here 
there is no breaking or ruffling of the ponder- 
ous mass, but it goes over calm and smooth, as 
if an enormous precipice of solid glass were 
stretched aloft before you, and the water has 
the hue of no other water, for no brilliant 
meadow-land, in its fresh and verdant garb of 



220 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

May, was ever greener. A stupendous flood, 
arched, green, massive, quiet, is there — quiet 
we say, for, strange to tell, there is this seem- 
ing and aspect as you gaze entranced. That 
enormous flood is rolling down forever, but, if 
I see aright, there is no hurry,, no rushing, no 
raging and tearing as up among the mad and 
sweeping rapids. Another genius and scenery 
are here. No mere river is pitching itself furi- 
ously down. An immense gulf, rather, pro- 
found and measureless, is forever rolling in and 
settling with dignity into the abyss. Nor is it 
seen, as with the other fall, whither goes this 
great, green flood, into what caverns it pours, 
on what rocks it dashes down. A dense and 
eternal mist comes up to hide those dark 
depths from every human eye, and no hapless 
ones that, by sore disaster, have gone down 
there were ever seen again. 

After the falls the Niagara River changes 
entirely. The path thence to the lake is at 
the bottom of a deep ravine or canon, one 
hundred and fifty or two hundred feet perpen- 
dicular, and thus it finds its lone way into the 
bosom of the Ontario. 

A single view of the Falls of Niagara is 



CATARACTS. 221 

desirable, but, with myself, one view is enough. 
Many tell of exceeding beauty there, and it 
may be so, but we mistake if that entire 
scenery be not more grand and awful than it 
is beautiful. Fear and dread, as it seems to 
me, are the inevitable as well as the more ap- 
propriate emotions. Grand are those mighty 
waters, but they are wild and terrible withal, 
and danger lurks there, - and death is near. 
Give me to linger, rather, in the neighborhood 
of more peaceful, quiet waters, waters that 
may be touched and loved, whose voice is ''still 
and small," rather than tremendous and awful, 
and along whose gentle bosom and quiet shores 
the graceful barge may bear me gently and 
safely. " He maketh me to lie down in green 
pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still waters." 





XLV. 



l> a lue s ♦ 



]N a preceding sketch I alluded to 
Lakes as one of the sources of rivers, 
and a general view of them must not 
be omitted. 

Lakes are, as you are aware, bodies of water 
surrounded by land, and are of all sizes, from 
the pond of a stone's-throw across it to a sea- 
like expanse spreading itself scores and even 
hundreds of miles in extent, and over which, as 
over oceans and seas, the wings of commerce 
are flying in every direction. 

The Caspian Sea, lying between Europe and 
Asia, is, by far, the largest lake in the world; 
being nearly eight hundred miles long, and 
having an average width of two hundred miles. 
So spacious is this lake, or sea, that were all 

222 \ 



LAKES. 223 

the other lakes of the globe poured into one 
they would form a lake only about one-fourth 
larger than the Caspian. Unlike most other 
lakes, it has no outlet, thus seeming to be a 
little ocean of itself 

The next largest of the lakes of the globe is 
our own Lake Superior, being of far less di- 
mensions than the Caspian Sea, yet about as 
large as the State of Maine. It is the chief 
of the system of great lakes dividing the 
United States from British America, Lakes 
Michigan and Huron being about two-thirds 
as large as Lake Superior, and Erie and On- 
tario about one-fourth of its dimensions. 

Either of these great bodies of water, as you 
stand upon its shores, has much the appear- 
ance of the ocean, stretching away before you 
like a limitless sea of waters, beyond which 
you look in vain for land. A great inland 
commerce traverses these waters, bearing the 
products of a widely extended country, and one 
of the most fertile in the world. 

Ai'al, of Tartary, east of the Caspian, is the 
third lake in size, being nearly equal to Lake 
Superior. This, as well as the Caspian, has no 
outlet, but otherwise is not remarkable. 



224 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Of the notable lakes of the world, one of 
the most curious is Lake TiticacUy of South 
America. It is one hundred and sixty miles 
long by fifty wide, and is situated far aloft 
among the Bolivian Andes, its surface being 
nearly thirteen thousand feet above that of the 
ocean. No other such a large body of water, 
at so great an elevation, exists upon earth ; and 
along its eastern shore, and at that great eleva- 
tion, and well-nigh inaccessible, dwell a miUion 
of people. Here seems to have been the seat 
of the highest and most ancient civiHzation of 
South America, and the dwelling-place of a 
people who have left gigantic monuments of, 
their power and skill. 

While the above is the highest considerable 
lake on the globe, the lake called the '^ Dead 
Sea'' is, as I have before noticed, the lowest 
of all, for its surface, instead of being above 
the ocean level, is 1,312 feet below it, and 14,- 
158 feet lower than the surface of Lake Titi- 
caca. This is the deepest depression, proba- 
bly, on the surface of the earth, and the extent 
of the lake or sea is, in length, forty-two miles, 
and in the greatest width, ten miles. Barren 
hills, from 1,500 to 2,500 feet high, overlook it 



LAKES. 225 

on both sides ; intense heat, in the dry season, 
prevails ; hot winds sweep over the lake, blis- 
tering the hands and face ; swarms of mosqui- 
toes torment the traveler to madness ; while, 
altogether, it is doubtless one of the most des- 
olate and God-forsaken of all terrestrial locali- 
ties. The waters of the lake are the densest 
and at the same time the saltest in the world ; 
nor is it known that any animal inhabits them. 

Into this dreary lake comes down the famous 
river yordan from Lake Gennesarety measuring, 
in its meanderings, about two hundred miles 
between the two lakes, although the direct dis- 
tance is but about sixty miles. The Gennesaret 
itself is between 400 and 500 feet below the 
sea level, and, of course, the Jordan, with its 
valley, is all a deep depression, hundreds of 
feet lower than the bed of any other river. 

We have remarked of the Dead Sea that its 
waters are salt ; and this is characteristic of all 
those lakes having no outlet. Such are the 
Caspian and Aral Seas, although the waters of 
the latter are but slightly salt. This phenom- 
enon of saltness is supposed to be owing to 
the impregnation of the water by certain min- 
eral substances with which the water comes in 

15 



226 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

contact, and as there is no withdrawal of the 
water except by evaporation, which leaves the 
salt mainly behind, such lakes become perma- 
nently saline. 

The smaller lakes of the world are innumer- 
able, and go to form a prominent and pleasant 
feature of thousands of lovely landscapes. Our 
own country abounds with such, of which the 
Oneida, Seneca, Canandaigua, Cayuga, George, 
Champlain, and a hundred others are examples. 




XLVI. 



Sprmgfs^ (^•> 




SPRING is a current of water coming 
from the ground and issuing out at 
its surface. It is a common phenom- 
enon, especially in uneven and hilly regions of 
country. The water thus issuing from the 
earth comes from some receptacle or reservoir 
of water situated under ground higher than 
the spring, and between which and the spring 
is a channel of communication more or less 
perfect. If the communication between the 
reservoir and the spring were unobstructed, as 
though the water were flowing down through 
a full pipe, then, if it issue from a suitable 
aperture, the spring would take the shape of a 
jet or fountain, and the water would spout into 

the air to a height approaching that of the 

227 



228 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

subterranean reservoir. But whence these hid- 
den reservoirs ? They are cavities which have 
been probably formed by the agency of water. 
In the case of rain-fall, as we have before no- 
ticed, a part of the falling water flows down 
descending surfaces of the ground, forming 
rills and brooks flowing off into larger brooks, 
and these into rivulets, and these into a river. 
Another portion of the raining water assumes, 
however, a different course. Instead of run- 
ning off on the surface and forming surface 
streams, it settles into the ground to a greater 
or less depth, according to the character of the 
soil through which it percolates. If there is 
much sand beneath, the water will settle to a 
lower depth ; if there is a strong mixture of 
clay it will sink a less distance. If the water 
encounters a surface of stone or hard clay its 
vertical sinking will, of course, be arrested, 
and if the hard surface be shelving it will find 
its way over its lower side. On the other 
hand, if the rocky or clayey surface is hollow 
and somewhat extensive, a large amount of 
water, in settling down from the surface of the 
ground above, will be detained until, at some 
point lower than the others, it will overflow 



SPRINGS. 



229 



and seek a downward passage away from the 
reservoir ; and if a way opens out to the sur- 
face a spring will be formed. Sometimes the 
passage from the reservoir to the spring is 
very short, as is doubtless the case with springs 
so frequently seen at the base of hills or gentle 
ascents. In other instances, the reservoir 
whence the spring water comes is miles away. 
Springs are diversified in their character. 
Some are feeble, from which but a slight stream 
issues ; others burst forth with a volume of 
water sufficient to operate a water-wheel for 
mechanical purposes. Some are intermittent — 
alternately flowing and ceasing to flow — others 
flow on without interruption. Some waters, in 
passing from the reservoir to the spring, jour- 
ney mainly through depths of sand or through 
sand-stone rocks, and thus come forth to the 
surface soft and pure; others take their course 
through very different strata, extensive lime- 
stone regions for example, and such spring 
water, holding more or less of lime in solution, 
will be calcareous, or "hard." While most 
springs are cold, some, especially in volcanic 
regions, are hot springs ; and some are hot and 
at the same time intermittent, like the Geysers 



230 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

of Iceland. Some, again, are mineral springs, 
their waters being slightly impregnated with 
mineral substances through which they have 
passed. 

Springs and fountains have ever been a wel- 
come and attractive feature, and are highly 
conducive to beauty as well as utility. One 
of the capital excellencies of the Land of Prom- 
ise was that it would be "a land of brooks of 
water, of fountains and depths that spring out 
of valleys and hills." 

It may be added that subterranean reservoirs 
and streams issuing from them are almost 
every-where, though multitudes of such streams 
fail to come to the surface and form springs and 
fountains there. In most cases we have to go 
beneath the surface to encounter these streams, 
and when, in sinking our shafts, we come upon 
them, the water flows in at the bottom, a per- 
manent spring, though deep in the ground in- 
stead of being at the surface like other springs. 
This we call a well^ and we esteem it next 
in value to springs issuing from the surface; 
while in all ages wells, as truly as springs and 
fountains, have been celebrated and have their 
place in the history of the race. 



SPRINGS. 23 1 

Thus it is one of the many noticeable facts 
of our earth, that its crust, down amid all ac- 
cessible depths, is charged with water, and 
generally such water as, in its nature and qual- 
ities, is adapted to the appetite and wants of 
man and beast. Hence, for this vital necessity 
of ours, we are not dependent upon every tran- 
sient and varying cloud above us. It is not 
to the clouds that we resort for cooling and 
refreshing waters. Magazines, immense and 
inexhaustible, are always beneath our feet, 
sometimes springing up to meet our thirsty 
lips, or else only requiring that we say, as did 
the Master at the ancient well, "Give me to 
drink." 




XL VII. 



^prin^s* ^^) 




|UR preceding letter closed with a vis- 
ion of the Savior at the well of Sy- 
char. This circumstance, associated 
with his conversation there with the woman 
of Samaria, reminds me to notice the splendid 
source of sacred imagery furnished by Springs, 
Wells, Streams, and Fountains of water. Will 
you indulge me with a slight glance at a spec- 
imen or two before passing on to another 
theme? And let us contemplate one of the 
modes whereby, in the Holy Scriptures, man's 
great want and its supply are imaged forth. 

Are we, by nature, morally impure — from 
the sole of the foot to the head, unclean — al- 
together become filthy ? '' Then will I sprinkle 
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean ; 
232 . 



SPRINGS. 233 

from all your filthiness and from all your idols 
will I cleanse you." 

Are we longing for a purer, higher, and ho- 
lier life ? " Let him that is athirst come. And 
whosoever will, let him take the water of life 
freely." '' Ho, every one that thirsteth, come 
ye to the waters." " If any man thirst, let him 
come to me and drink." '' I will give unto him 
that thirsteth of the fountain of the water of 
life freely." '' They have forsaken me, the 
fountain of living waters." 

Do the purest, best, and most reviving of 
earthly fountains fail to give permanent life.? 
And drinking these, shall we still often long to 
repeat the draught, and die at last .? " Whoso- 
ever drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; 
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I 
shall give him shall never thirst ; but the water 
that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life." 

Need we consolation and hopeful assurance 
in passing through this vale of tears } '' With 
joy shall ye draw water from the wells of 
salvation." '' There is a river the streams 
whereof shall make glad the city of God." 

Shall a good man flourish and prosper in the 



234 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

earth ? " He shall be like a tree planted by 
the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his 
fruit in his season." ''As a tree planted by the 
waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the 
river, and shall not be seen when heat Com- 
eth." "Thou shalt be like a watered garden, 
and like a spring of water whose waters fail 
not." What of them that hearken to God's 
commandments.? Their peace shall be ''as a 
river, and their righteousness like the waves 
of the sea." 

Shall a man do great good, and become a 
source of large and numberless blessings to his 
race ? " He that believeth on me; out of his 
belly shall flow rivers of living water." 

Does the good man anticipate a second 
paradise, beautiful as Eden, and much more 
abundantly so ? " And he showed me a pure 
river of water of life, clear as prystal, proceed- 
ing out of the throne of God and the Lamb. 
In the midst of the street of it, and on the 
side of the river, was there the tree of life, 
which bare twelve manner of fruits, and 
yielded her fruit every month ; and the leaves 
of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 
And there shall be no more curse." 



I 



XLVIII. 



Watjer ♦ 




UT what is Water? Having written 
of it so repeatedly as it appears in the 
seas, rivers, lakes, springs, and fount- 
ains, and familiar as we are with its beauty and 
its multiplied adaptations to the wants of the 
animal and vegetable world, a word or two 
touching its nature and properties seems de- 
sirable. 

Water is composed of two gases — Oxygen 
and Hydrogen — chemically combined in pro- 
portions, by measure, of two of hydrogen and 
one of oxygen. 

Of water there is a multitude of varieties 
from that which is pure to what is greatly the 
reverse. In respect, however, to water abso- 
lutely pure, it may be doubtful whether such a 

235 



2^6 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

thing exist in nature. Rain-water, which is 
the purest, is yet not entirely so, evaporation- 
from the ocean always carrying with it a cer- 
tain amount of salt. Nor does distillation in- 
sure absolute purity, though many times re- 
peated. All this seems no special damage, nor, 
for the most purposes, would water be improved 
by being rendered absolutely pure. For drink- 
ing purposes, it would thus become insipid and 
tasteless ; and thus it is that the purest rain- 
water is not so agreeable to drink as the water 
from wells or springs. The latter, by percola- 
ting through different mineral substances, in 
its way through the ground, acquires a slight 
degree of taste which makes it more pleasant 
to the palate than water directly from the 
clouds. The impurity of water arises mainly 
from its solvent power, which is very extensive, 
most substances coming in contact with it be- 
ing more or less subject to its influence. This 
is the sQ,cret of all mineral waters, some of 
which are so salutary in their effects upon cer- 
tain diseases, while others are deleterious. 

''A good drinkable water," says an author, 
"may be recognized by the following charac- 
ters: it is perfectly colorless and transparent 



WATER. 237 

without smell or appreciable taste, but agree- 
able, and not insipid or flat, does not lose 
its clearness by boiling, and leaves a very 
slight residuum upon evaporation." The same 
writer adds that ''rain-water, not of the first 
fall, and the water of thawed snow and ice, 
are, of course, purest of all that ofler for com- 
mon use, and no others are really so well 
adapted as these for culinary, cleansing, and 
mechanical purposes. But the lack of gases 
in these waters, unless they are artificially 
aerated, as by agitating them with air or 
other gases, render them less agreeable for 
drinking." 

Of the abundance of water I have already 
written. Its proportion of surface on the 
globe, compared to the land surface, is as 276 
to 100. On that part of the globe north of 
the equator, the proportion is as 150 to 100. 
In the southern hemisphere it is as 628 to 100. 

Great as is this apparent disproportion of 
water on the earth it, nevertheless, seems har- 
monious with its countless uses and necessi- 
ties. Instead of asking, where are these uses 
and necessities ? we may more properly ask, 
where are they not.? In what operation of 



238 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

nature or art can it be dispensed with ? What 
would the air be without its presence ? What 
would become of the soil and the* whole veg- 
etable world, without its solvent and nourish- 
ing qualities ? Equally, what would become of 
the whole animal creation ? What become of 
all art, all manufactures, all commerce, all wa- 
ter and steam-power, all transportation ? The 
water-power of the streams of Europe alone 
has been computed to be equivalent to the 
power of more than three hundred and fifty 
millions of horses incessantly working by day 
and night. Water seems to us a simple thing, 
yet it is as great as it is simple, as desirable as 
the comeliness and beauty of this magnificent 
globe, as useful as the vital air, or our daily 
bread, as necessary as life itself. 





XLIX. 



Clouds* 



lAVING written so much of water in 
its various forms of seas, rivers, lakes, 
springs, and fountains, let us glance, 
for a moment, at the immediate source from 
which we receive it. That source is the Cloiids. 
But what are the clouds ? I have already al- 
luded to the subject of evaporation ; which 
means the ascending of vapor, that is, minute 
particles of water, from the surfaces of water, 
and land. This operation is going forward at 
all times, and the invisible vapor is contin- 
ually ascending, though at some times much 
more rapidly than at others. The vapor as- 
cends into the air, which has a vast though 
limited capacity of retaining it, this capac- 
ity, in a given region, varying according to its 

239 



240 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

temperature. The warmer the air into which 
the vapor ascends, the more the particles of va- 
por expand, and expanding continue to ascend. 
On the other hand, cold air condenses the par- 
ticles, and thus they become visible in the 
shape of a cloud. It will be a thin cloud if 
the air is but slightly cool and not too much 
charged with vapor, and by a slight change to 
a warmer terpperature, the cloud disperses 
again and becomes invisible. Or, if the air is 
highly saturated with vapor, and is sufficiently 
cool, a heavy condensation takes place, the 
particles of vapor collect in drops, and being 
then too heavy to remain aloft, they fall in the 
shape of rain. Thus the same cloud may shed 
its water in rain or be dissipated into the upper 
air, according to the temperature of the region 
of the air where the cloud is resting. If cool 
and growing cooler, there will be rain ; if the 
air becomes warmer, either by the sun's rays, 
or by the cloud being driven by wind into a 
warmer atmosphere, it will be scattered and 
probably disappear ; or should the wind waft 
the same cloud against some lofty mountain, 
the cooler air will cause rain. Thus it is that 
the clouds are ever changing their form, now 



CLOUDS. 241 

enlarging and darkening, and, perhaps, giving 
out rain ; then, again, brightening, diminish- 
ing, and entirely disappearing — an emblem of 
our present uncertain existence. " For what is 
your life ? It is even a vapor that appeareth 
for a little time and then vanisheth away." 

Philosophers have assigned names to the 
clouds according to the different aspects which 
they present to us. The CtimiduSy for ex- 
ample, is the Summer-day cloud, having the 
appearance of distant rounded hills covered 
with snow, often increasing with the warmth 
of the day, obscuring the sun, and sometimes 
condensing into rain. 

The Stratus is rather a night and Winter 
cloud, appearing in the horizontal layers or 
strata sometimes suddenly produced, hangs 
lower than other clouds, and, in Winter-time, 
not unfrequently shuts out the sky for several 
successive days. 

The Cirrus has a feathery aspect, extends 
"in long, slender filaments, and, again, in par- 
allel stripes, from one extremity of the heavens 
to the other." It is a very elevated cloud, ap- 
pearing from lofty summits as high in air as 

when seen from the plain. 

16 



242 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

These three main forms of clouds often, of 
course, blend, more or less, into each other, 
> producing intermediate forms ; and when con- 
fusedly intermixed the mingled mass is called 
Nimbus, which is more especially the rain 
cloud. 

The clouds present to us another deeply in- 
teresting subject of contemplation, and they 
have, in all ages, attracted the attention and 
study of man. And no wonder ; they are 
aloft, and conspicuous, and often beautiful and 
greatly welcome, and, at times, too magnifi- 
cent and grand for description. From them 
come the riches of the rain and snow, and by 
their different aspects we learn to predict, with 
greater or less certainty, the coming on of 
storms, or the advent of fair weather, or the 
approach of colder or milder hours. Also, 
they are the arena of that great artillery whose 
thunderings are heard afar as their awful ech- 
oes rattle athwart those fields of air, or break 
with deadening, frightful crash just before or 
behind us. 




nxn\ 



jROM the clouds comes Ram, which is 
a condensation of the vapor in the 
atmosphere into drops, whose weight 
causes them to fall to the ground. As has 
been already said, when, by any cause, the air 
becomes suddenly chilled its capacity for hold- 
ing moisture is diminished, and the excess 
becomes condensed, and the rain-drops are 
formed. 

As rains are governed very much by the 
state of the atmosphere, it follows that the 
amount of rain-falls in different parts of the 
world vary exceedingly. The torrid zone is 
especially subject to rain. Here the Trade- 
Winds from the north-east and the south-east 
meet under the equator, and bring in from the 

243 



244 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

oceans over which they pass immense quanti- 
ties of vapor, and as the atmosphere is in- 
tensely heated by the sun it becomes saturated 
to its utmost capacity by vapor; hence, the 
abundant vapor is borne upward to higher 
regions of the air, where becoming cooler and 
condensed, it falls back in abundant rains. 
Also, in these regions, and owing to frequent 
changes of temperature, violent tornadoes and 
thunder tempests are almost daily occurrences. 
This " belt of rain," or rainy season, follows the 
sun as it traverses from the north to the south 
tropic and back again, so that, in the torrid 
zone, it occurs twice a year, and the amount 
of water that falls in the course of a year is 
almost beyond belief Humboldt estimated the 
average depth of rain falling annually in differ- 
ent latitudes as follows : 

At the equator, . 98 in. I Latitude 45 deg., 29 in. 
Latitude 19 deg., 80 in. | Latitude 60 deg., 17 in. 

While this average proportion for different 
latitudes may be nearly correct, yet certain lo- 
calities of the torrid zone vary exceedingly 
from such an estimate. At Paramaribo, for 
example, in Dutch Guiana, the annual rain-fall 
amounts to 229 inches ; at Maranhao, Brazil, 



RAIN. 



245 



to 276 inches ; at Guadaloupe, to 286 inches ; 
at Mahableshwur, to 302 inches — 25 feet ! 

Rains in the temperate zone are more 
irregular, and a much smaller quantity of water 
falls. The average yearly amount for several 
localities has been ascertained to be nearly as 
follows : 



British Isles, 
France, 
Germany, 
Hungary, . 
Eastern Russia, 
Cambridge, Mass., 



32 in. 
24 in. 
20 in. 
17 in. 
14 in. 
38 in. 



Western Reserve, O., 36 in. 
Ft. Crawford, Wis., 30 in. 
Philadelphia, . 45 in. 
Marietta, O., . 41 in. 

St. Louis, Mo., . 32 in. 



In the temperate regions the mean annual 
amount of rain in the Eastern Hemisphere is 
34 inches, in the Western Hemisphere 39 
inches. 

Enormous rains sometimes occur in certain 
locaHties. In February, 1820, at Cayenne, of 
French Guiana — which appears to be the 
rainiest country on earth — there fell in twenty- 
four days twelve and one-half feet of rain! a 
quantity one would think sufficient to flood 
the country, and sweep to destruction every 
habitation. 

On the other hand, strange to tell, there are 
extensive regions of the earth where no rain 



246 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

falls. Most of such countries, of course, except 
where irrigation is possible, are deserts — waste 
places of the earth where no green thing is 
seen. Such is the great Sahara of Africa ; 
such, also, are much of the Asiatic countries 
of Arabia, Persia, Thibet, and Mongolia. On 
our own continent, the narrow territory be- 
tween the Andes and the Pacific is, much of it, 
a desert. Also, Western Mexico, extending 
northward into Arizona and Nevada, may be 
classed among the desert regions of the globe. 
These are rainless, cheerless countries, most 
of them unfit for the residence of human be- 
ings, and comprising not less than seven or 
eight millions of square miles of the earth's 
surface. This is a serious amount withdrawn 
from the fifty millions of the earth's solid sur- 
face. Why so great a waste } Why not afford 
the rain here as elsewhere, and turn these im- 
mense deserts into fruitful and habitable coun- 
tries } I can not answer ; God knoweth. He 
thus orders and arranges, and all his ways are 
the best possible. Let us rest the matter 
there, for there is abundance of goodly land 
yet to be possessed, and of which it may be 
said, *' Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it ; 



RAIN. 247 

thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, 
which is full of water; thou preparest them 
corn, when thou hast so provided for it; thou 
waterest the ridges thereof abundantly, thou 
settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it 
soft with showers, thou blessest the springing 
thereof.'* 




LI. 



U je w 



FTER all, however, the desert lands 
are not all of them utterly desolate, 
for, though rain is withheld, the Dew 
comes in as a partial substitute for some of the 
rainless localities of the earth. But first let us 
revert to the origin of dew. As evaporation is 
constantly proceeding, so the atmosphere is 
always more or less charged with moisture; 
thus, let it come in contact with an object 
cooler than itself, as upon a pitcher of cold 
water placed upon the table, and the moisture, 
or vapor, in the atmosphere will be condensed 
and appear as a fine dew upon the surface of 
the vessel. By a similar process all dew is 
formed. It is the vapor of the air extracted 
by the greater chilliness of the surfaces upon 
248 



DEW. 249 

which the moisture is deposited. Evaporation 
constantly proceeding at the surface of the 
ground, this surface is cooled by the process, 
and the warmer air coming in contact with the 
cooler surface deposits its moisture upon it ; 
and the point of temperature at which the 
moisture begins to be deposited is called the 
dew point. 

If the air be saturated with vapor, that is, 
contain as much moisture as its capacity will 
allow, then, as it comes in contact with the 
cool earth, there will be what is termed a heavy 
dew ; in other words, a large amount of water 
will be deposited. 

Dew begins to form, often, before the sun 
has set, and a visible degree of moisture will 
be observed by walking through the grass. It 
forms more rapidly, however, toward morning, 
as the earth then becomes cooler Jhan before. 

From the above remarks touching the forma- 
tion of dew, it is plain that the dew does not 
fall, as many suppose, but is produced directly 
where it is seen ; and this delusion of \h^ fall- 
ing of the dew was aided with some of us 
when children, by observing that, after cloudy 
nights, there would be little or no dew upon 



250 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the grass. Thus we not unnaturally inferred 
that the clouds prevented the dew from falling 
by their intervention between the sky and the 
earth. The clouds did indeed prevent the 
dew, but not in any such way as we supposed. 
They prevented it by preventing the earth be- 
neath them from cooling; and this was ac- 
complished by the rays of heat from the ground 
impinging upon the clouds and being by them 
reflected back again to the ground. Thus the 
earth, being prevented from losing its heat, 
retained about the same temperature as the air 
in contact with it, and hence no moisture from 
the air was deposited. Not only clouds, but 
any other overhanging object, as a tree or a 
piece of cloth stretched out a few feet above 
the ground, will have the same effect, and so 
gardeners, to prevent young plants from being 
touched by frost, sometimes thus prevent them 
from being bedewed, in order that there may 
be no dew upon them to freeze. 

The amount of dew deposited in some coun- 
tries is surprising. One author estimates the 
annual amount precipitated in England to be 
five inches of water, which is nearly one-sixth 
the amount that falls in rain. Indeed, on 



DEW. 251 

some mornings, so great is the quantity of 
dew precipitated in the preceding night that 
there is the appearance of having been rain 
instead of mere dew. Thus it is, as I hinted 
in the beginning of this sketch, that even 
some rainless countries are saved from being 
absolute deserts like the great Sahara of Af- 
rica. This is true of portions of the western 
coast of both North and South America, also 
of Camana in Venezuela, and in upper Egypt, 
as well as other dry regions of the East. Nor 
is such benefit of dew confined to partial des- 
erts. In times of drought, not unfrequently 
occurring in countries favored with rains, the 
dew is of great service, and though not an 
adequate substitute for rain, yet the dews often 
mitigate the severities of droughts, and save 
the blighted fruits and vegetables from utter 
failure and destruction. 

In conclusion, dews, as well as other forms 
of water, are honored with pleasant allusions 
in the Holy Scripture, and have their place in 
the sacred imagery. '' God give thee of the 
dew of heaven !" said the ancient patriarch as 
he blessed his son. 



LII. 



IjC^* 



CE, as you know, is water made solid 
by freezing. When water is reduced 
in temperature down to 32^ of Fahr- 
enheit's thermometer it begins to freeze, and 
hence this is called the freezing-point ; like as 
the point where vapor in the atmosphere be- 
comes dew is called the dew-point. 

Water, by freezing, expands to a certain ex- 
tent, so that a cubic foot of water changed to 
ice would measure more than a cubic foot. 
This has been thought an exception to the 
general law of contraction by cold. But it has 
been ascertained that fusible bodies generally, 
in a solid state, have a less specific gravity 
than in a melted state. A piece of solid metal, 
for example, will float in the same metal melted. 

2tJ2 



ICE. 253 

This, at first sight, seems an unimportant fact, 
and having little to do, one way or another, 
with the welfare of the world. But suppose 
that water should follow the general law of 
contraction by cold. It does, indeed, follow 
this law down to about 39°, when, as the cold 
still increases toward the freezing-point at 32^, 
the water expands instead of contracting. If it 
should continue to contract down to the freez- 
ing-point, and ice, as it is formed, should have 
less bulk than the water of which it is made, 
the consequences would be disastrous in the 
extreme. It would then happen that every 
piece of ice as soon as formed, instead of re- 
.maining at the surface of the water, would 
immediately sink to the bottom of the lake or 
river, and this process of formation and imme- 
diate sinking of ice would continue to go on so 
long as the weather should be sufficiently cold 
for freezing. It would follow that in the course 
of a single cold Winter all such lakes and 
streams would become solid ice, and would 
remain substantially so always and in all re- 
gions of the earth where the Winter's cold 
would be sufficient for freezing over the sur- 
faces of such bodies of water. This would, of 



254 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

course, seriously affect the climate of such 
countries, and thus not only would all naviga- 
tion of these waters be arrested and would for- 
ever cease, but no small part of the world 
would become partially or wholly uncultivated 
and uninhabitable. So much is often depend- 
ent in the world of nature upon a single, appar- 
ently, unimportant arrangement ; while the one 
before us is the more noticeable and curious, 
as being an exception to a general law. 

After ice is once formed, however, it no 
longer contravenes the general law of contrac- 
tion by cold, but as, in extreme cold weather, 
the ice becomes colder than when first formed, 
it contracts, like other bodies, under the influ- 
ence of cold ; hence, in this shrinking, the ice 
on lakes and rivers often cracks asunder with 
loud reports. 

Ice has its uses ; for the Creator has ordered 
nothing in vain. Like snow, which itself is 
ice, it is a bad conductor of heat ; and being 
formed over rivers and lakes, prevents the heat 
from below escaping through it, and thus cool- 
ing the water to an excessive degree. In the 
same way it protects land surfaces that the 
Winter season overspreads with ice. Also, in 



ICE. 255 

the Arctic regions, the natives, with the same 
view, erect their huts of ice, in which they 
pass away their long, cold, and dark Winters. 
And then, too, ice can be preserved into the 
warm season, and thus it becomes a special 
luxury amid the Summer heats, as well as 
greatly useful for the preservation of meats 
and other articles ; hence it has, of late years 
especially, become a commodity of extensive 
commerce. For this purpose, as well as for 
domestic use, it is during the Winter season 
cut out from ponds and rivers in blocks as 
large as can be conveniently hau]ed, and stored 
in ice-houses, whence it is shipped to those 
parts of the world whose climate is too warm 
for producing it. 

This is a recent but rapidly growing traffic, 
as is evinced by the fact that during the last 
half century the annual export of the article 
of ice from this country has advanced from 
130 tons to 150,000 or more. 



lu^'t.i 



LIII. 



^rlacijers* 




HE subject of Ice reminds us to speak 
of GlacierSy which are, in fact, rivers 
\ of ice instead of water. 
Imagine any river which you have ever seen 
to be instantaneously changed into ice, from 
the surface to the bottom of the stream, and 
you have a correct general idea of glaciers as 
they exist in vast numbers among the high 
mountains of the earth. 

You are aware that mountains rearing them- 
selves above a certain height, are covered with 
perpetual snow. You will also recollect that 
these lofty and immense snow-fields are not 
mainly smooth surfaces, but are often cut 
across by wide and deep gorges or ravines 
scooped down the mountain side from very 
256 



GLACIERS. 257 

lofty elevations. Far up amid these dismal 
realms are frequent tempests of snows and 
hurricanes so dense, wild, and terrible, as we 
who witness snow-storms on the lowlands of 
the world have little conception of In proc- 
ess of time, these repeated snows fill up the 
huge mountain gorges to the depth of hun- 
dreds and often thousands of feet. Partly by 
the prodigious pressure upon these depths of 
snow, as layer after layer is made, by succes- 
sive storms, it grows into ice, and thus there 
is formed an ice river, as already noticed. 
These ice rivers, or glaciers, may be counted 
by hundreds within only a few miles along the 
Alps, extending down the mountain gorges 
from ten to twenty miles in length, and from 
one to more than two miles in width, and in 
many places toward 1,000 feet deep. Com- 
mencing, as, of course, they must, up above 
the line of eternal snow, they extend down the 
mountains to three or four thousand feet above 
the level of the sea; at this height they ter- 
minate. Far upward toward their beginning, 
they are covered with the never-melting 
snows ; but down here at their lower terminus, 
if it is Summer-time, the snows have melted 

17 



258 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

off, and there stands before you an enormous 
and ungainly precipice of ice, itself partially 
melted amid the warmer atmosphere into 
which it has intruded itself; and thus, by the 
melting process, it becomes somewhat de- 
pressed at the top, and worn wedgewise at the 
sides, the terminus, however, still remaining, 
often lofty and inaccessible. 

Should you, in ascending the mountains, 
travel up one of these glaciers, you will find 
the surface often so rough and confused as to 
be difficult to traverse. Here a hollow will be 
scooped out and filled with water, there the 
ice, for several feet or rods, has parted, and a 
chasm of unknown depth yawns before you. 
Sometimes this chasm extends well-nigh across 
the glacier. Sometimes the opening is straight, 
at other times curved. Then, again, multi- 
tudes of stones, some of them large bowlders, 
are scattered or heaped up and down the 
rough surface, having fallen from the hideous 
precipices through which this strange ice-river 
is passing. These stones and debris, stretched 
along the glacier, are called Moraines, and 
constitute one of the striking features of the 
scenery. 



GLACIERS. 259 

As the melting process goes on more and 
more as the glacier tends down the mountain, 
numerous channels of water perforate the 
body of ice, some of them extending down to 
its very bottom and forming rivulets which 
issue out from the terminus of the glacier, and 
become the commencement, often, of far-ex- 
tending and famous rivers. We have just 
hinted that these ice-rivers themselves are not 
stationary, but actually have a motion down- 
ward, though so slow as not to be perceptible 
to the eye. The ice of which they are formed 
is not what we term solid ice ; for ice in im- 
mense bodies like the glaciers is not the brit- 
tle, solid substance we see cut out of rivers or 
lakes, but is rather, especially when saturated 
with water, of a partially plastic character. 
Thus this ice of the glacier, having upon it a 
most enormous pressure frorn above, has a 
gradual, but perpetual motion downward. It 
is, in fact, "not only a river, but ?i flowing river. 
The rate of motion, like that of rivers of water, 
is governed by the rapidity of descent. If the 
glacier is nearly level, it travels slowly ; if its 
path is steep, its course is more rapid. Some 
are known to travel about two hundred and 



260 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

fifty feet in a year ; others twice as far. They 
travel faster in warm than in cold weather, 
and it is noticed that, like common rivers, the 
middle of the ice-stream has a more rapid mo- 
tion than the sides and the bottom. 




LIV. 



tci&hetgs. 



N writing about glaciers, I remarked 
that having originated up among the 
eternal snows, they, in temperate lat- 
itudes, flow down the mountains far below the 
snow limit, to within 3,000 or 4,000 feet above 
the level of the sea, and there, in the warmer 
temperature which they have reached, termi- 
nate by the gradual melting away of the 
lower extremity of the ice-river. 

Very different from this is the state of 
things with glaciers that are formed among 
the mountains of the Arctic regions of the 
globe. Here the line of permanent snows and 
frost is no longer far up the mountains, but is 
clear down to the sea-level. Consequently the 
Arctic glaciers, instead of terminating 3,000 

261 



262 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

or 4,000 feet above the ocean-level, flow down 
bodily to the very shores of the sea, and even 
push themselves, in the shape of an enormous 
ridge of ice, into the frozen seas and bays of 
the extreme North. Here they go plowing 
and crushing through the thick ice, covering 
the waters, until the stupendous mass issuing 
into deep water, and being no longer supported 
by the solid ground beneath, breaks off from 
the main glacier, and floats away independ- 
ently and by itself. 

Thus it is that Icebergs are born, which, as 
you probably know, are immense bodies of 
sohd ice, floating about in Northern seas, and 
often drifting down so far south as to be seen 
from vessels crossing the Atlantic. Not only 
are they seen, but they not unfrequently float 
directly into the pathway of ships, and, espe- 
cially at certain seasons of the year, form one 
of the dangers of navigation. A ship under 
sail in a dark night, striking against one of 
these awful ice-mountains, would almost infal- 
libly be sunk within a very few moments, in 
the depths of the ocean ; nor is there a doubt 
that many an unfortunate voyager over the 
sea has thus suddenly perished with all his 



ICEBERGS. 263 

comrades, so that no tidings of their sad fate 
ever came to the ears of their friends at home. 
Every year, more or less vessels sail away to 
sea, and are never heard of more; and we 
need hardly doubt that some of these were 
wrecked and lost under the cold and hideous 
precipices of an iceberg. 

The iceberg may be considered an ice- 
mountain floating in the ocean. Their dimen- 
sions, as well as their numbers, are often 
astonishing. Dr. IKane, in one of his cruises, 
saw, on one occasion, 280 in sight at once, 
most of which were 250 feet high, and some 
more than 300 feet. The dimensions of some 
must be measured by miles instead of feet or 
rods. Lieutenant Parry saw an iceberg two 
and a half miles long, and nearly as wide, and 
fifty feet high, and it was aground in water 
300 feet deep. Dr. Kane saw one aground in 
soundings of 500 feet. Captain Ross, another 
Arctic navigator, saw several icebergs aground 
in Baffin's Bay, where the water was 1,500 feet 
deep. One was seen in the Southern Ocean 
thirteen miles long with vertical walls one 
hundred feet high. And you are to keep in 
mind the fact that great and lofty as these 



264 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

ice-mountains are above the surface of the 
water, you thus see only about one-eighth of 
the whole mass, seven-eighths being immersed. 
The force of these stupendous bodies floating 
freely in an ocean current, would doubtless ex- 
ceed by far any other force upon the surface 
of the globe. As they float upon the sea, ice- 
bergs do not always preserve the same position 
in the water, but not unfrequently they roll 
over either partially or wholly. "Nothing," 
says Dr. Kane, "can be raf)re imposing than 
the rotation of a berg. I have often watched 
one, rocking its earth-stained sides in steadily 
deepening ' curves, as if to gather energy for 
some desperate gymnastic feat, and then turn- 
ing itself slowly over in a monster somersault, 
and vibrating as its head rose into the new 
element like a leviathan shaking the water 
from its crest." 

As I have in this sketch repeatedly referred 
to Dr. Kane, allow me to recommend to you 
the careful perusal of his "Arctic Researches," 
as being a book not only full of interest, but 
as admirably fitted to impress lessons of what 
a determined and brave man can accomplish 
in spite of the most formidable difficulties. 



LV. 



^^at* 




EAT is a nanle we give either to a 
certain sensation or to that some- 
thing which causes the sensation. 
This is about all we can say of it in the way 
of description. We are familiar with some of 
its effects, but what is the mysterious agent 
itself no man knows. Its great source, so far 
as our earth is concerned, is the sim, ixoxsx 
which emanates an amount of heat far sur- 
passing all human conception. It is computed 
that the sun sends to the earth and its atmos- 
phere sufficient heat annually to melt a shell 
of ice a hundred and forty feet thick. But our 
earth lies off from the sun nearly a hundred 
million of miles, and consequently occupies 

but a very small part of that immense sphere 

265 



266 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

which is filled with the sun's light and heat. 
Were all the sun's heat that is sent out from 
its surface in every direction to be directed 
upon the earth, it would in a single year melt a 
crust of ice four thousand miles thick, or a 
crust thirty-seven feet thick every minute; in 
other words, the sun would pour upon the 
earth perpetually, a heat seven times as great 
as the glowing fire of a blast furnace. 

So far as we know, heat is universally dif- 
fused, being contained in all matter in what- 
ever state, whether gaseous, liquid, or solid. 
Even ice is not free from it, for transport a 
piece of ice from our latitude to the Arctic 
regions, and it would be as much colder there 
than here as the temperature of the air is 
colder ; that is, the block of ice would have 
parted with so many degrees of heat. Bear it 
to some colder region still and, for the same 
reason, yet more heat will be abstracted from it. 

Thus heat differs extremely in intensity or 
quantity, ranging from a point too low to a 
point too high to be measured or at all appre- 
ciated. By an artificial thermometer, or meas- 
urer of heat, we are accustomed to express by 
figures different degrees of it so far as is nee- 



HEAT. 267 

essary for ordinary purposes. By the ther- 
mometer principally used — that of Fahren- 
heit — the point of temperature at which water 
boils is designated by the number 212, and the 
point at which it freezes by the number 32, 
thus reckoning 180^ between these two points. 
Then, by this thermometer, about 51"^ is the 
average temperature of London, 8iJ° that of 
the equator, 99^° that of human blood, 980° 
that of red heat, and 1,140^ marks the heat of 
common fire. By this thermometer the figure 
60 denotes a temperate warmth, and 100 a 
warmth which we sometimes experience in 
Summer days, but which is quite too great for 
comfort or health. 

Thirty-two degrees being freezing-point, zero 
designates, of course, very cold weather, while 
at 15° and 20° below zero we have extreme 
cold. At 39° below zero the mercury of the 
thermometer freezes, and thus can indicate no 
greater cold ; hence, for this purpose, instead 
of mercury alcohol is used, which will indicate 
a hundred degrees more of cold before freezing. 

In respect to the effect of heat on bodies, the 
general law is that it expands them, while they 
contract again in cooling; and the force of 



268 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

this expansion and contraction is well-nigh 
irresistible, and is not prevented from acting 
by the magnitude of the heated object. Thus 
it is stated that the Bunker Hill Monument, a 
mass of stone thirty feet square at the base 
and two hundred and twenty-one feet high, is 
so acted upon, in a bright and warm Summer 
day, that its top is swayed through an irregular 
ellipse, returning to its perpendicular position 
only when all its sides return to an equal 
temperature. 

Heat communicates itself in various ways, 
as, first, by conduction^ which is the mode 
mainly in solid bodies, wherein a particle of 
matter receives heat from an adjoining particle 
and gives it out to other adjoining particles ; 
a second mode is by convection or being car- 
ried — the mode with fluid bodies. A particle 
becomes heated and immediately moves off, 
carrying its heat with it, and communicates it 
to other particles at a greater or less distance ; 
a third mode is by radiation^ analogous to the 
transmission through space of the rays of 
light. 

Heat bears a most important part in the 
constitution and arrangements of our world, 



HEAT. 269 

and in every thing and animal upon its sur- 
face. All bodies with which we are familiar 
are incessantly under the influence of this 
agent, its presence being an indispensable con- 
dition toward fitting the world for the habita- 
tion of life and intelligence. 

Cold is a negative ; being simply the ab- 
sence of heat, as darkness is the absence of 
light; and, of course, degrees of cold are as- 
certained by the same instrument as those of 
heat, that is, by the thermometer ; for when 
the mercury of the thermometer stands at 40 
it indicates that there are 40° of heat and the 
absence of any more than 40°, that is, a cold 
of 40°. Thirty-two degrees indicate such an 
absence of heat, that is, such a degree of cold, 
as that water will freeze. The causes of cold 
are absence of the sun, thinness of the atmos- 
phere, as in ascending mountains, evaporation, 
and radiation through a clear atmosphere. 



LVI. 




J;^i0ht* 



IND God said, Let there be Lights 
and light was." Previously, it ap- 
pears that darkness was upon the 
face of the abyss, and, in the establishment of 
the present order of things upon this earth, 
the Creator made the sun as the great source 
of the light which we enjoy. 

What this light is, as in the case of heat, we. 
are ignorant, and different theories touching 
its nature have been propounded by philoso- 
phers. The Newtonian theory contemplates 
it as a material substance whose particles are 
almost infinitely minute. The theory, how- 
ever, now more generally adopted, is what is 
termed the tindulatory theory, maintaining that 
light is propagated by means of pulses or 
270 



LIGHT. 271 

waves of disturbance originating, by some 
means, at the surface of luminous bodies, and 
spreading thence in every direction. 

If there is more or less uncertainty as to 
the nature of this wonderful thing which we 
call lighty yet some of its properties are well 
ascertained. We know, for example, that it 
travels, and the rate of its progress through 
space. We know also, that, in a homogeneous 
medium, it travels, so to speak, in straight 
lines or rays. We know that in passing from 
a rarer to a denser medium or the reverse, the 
straight rays of light are bent according to a 
certain law. We further know that rays of 
light are capable of being reflected as well as 
bent, and, as in the case of a reflected ball, the 
angle of incidence and of reflection are equal ; 
and we know that as the rays of light are ca- 
pable of being bent from a straight line so 
they can be gathered and converged to a point 
or focus, or, on the other hand, can be dis- 
persed and scattered. Still further, we know 
that light, in its progress, can penetrate and 
pass through certain solid and liquid sub- 
stances, as glass, water, etc., while other sub- 
stances either reflect or absorb the rays of 



2/2 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

light impinging upon them. And we also 
know that light is the source of colors, and is 
the blending of all the several hues and tints 
that exist. We know, too, that light exerts a 
special influence upon vegetation and is essen- 
tial to it. 

As Hght does not diffuse itself instantly, but 
progresses through space, its rate of progress, 
as was noted above, has been ascertained. 
Thus it is known that light travels from the 
sun to the earth in eight and one-half minutes. 
Its velocity must, consequently, be not far 
from a hundred and ninety-two thousand miles 
per second, or eleven and a half millions of 
miles per minute, or more than six hundred 
and ninety-one millions per hour ; hence, a 
ball flying with the velocity of light around 
our globe would encircle it seven times and a 
fraction every second. Were such a ball illu- 
minated, so immediately would the ball follow 
itself, so to speak, that its path would present 
a luminous, continuous, and permanent bow 
across the heavens. 

It is by light that we see ; and like as the 
nature and quality of the atmosphere are pe- 
culiarly adapted to breathing, so the nature 



LIGHT. 273 

and quality of light entirely correspond to the 
eyes, and is completely fitted for perfect vision. 
Either a greater or less amount of light would 
have been a disadvantage, and would, doubt- 
less, have been prejudicial to the eye and to 
general health. 

And who shall ever portray the beauty, the 
essential excellence of light ? Of what innu- 
merable forms of happiness is it the immediate 
source ! How does the whole habitable earth 
rejoice under its" benign influence! In its 
bright presence how cheerily and pleasantly 
proceeds every business, every innocent amuse- 
ment, every lawful pleasure, every prosperous 
journey by land and sea, every pure and ele- 
gant study, every fair and upward progress ! 
Bathed in light, howy,is the face of friendship, U^-€£j 
the smiles of love, the glad and beautiful coun- 
tenance of childhood, the graceful form of 
lovely woman, the sprightly bearing and aspect 
of joyous youth, and the venerable and digni- 
fied presence of old age ! 

So supremely excellent is light that inspira- 
tion uses the name as one of the epithets of 
God himself " God is Light, and in him is no 

darkness at all." Also, the great Redeemer is 

18 



274 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the Light of the world, a hght to hghten the 
Gentiles. A sun and shield is God ; the Sun 
of righteousness ; and the great city of God 
will have no need of the sun, neither of the 
moon to shine in it, for the glory of God will 
lighten it, and the Lamb will be the light 
thereof. 

Thus, also, light is used as the brilliant em- 
blem of many an excellence in human affairs. 
All the knowledges are light; and men of 
great intellectual attainments, and who use 
such attainments for the benefit of mankind, 
are great lights. Men, too, of eminent virtue 
are burning and shining lights — shining before 
men, and thus manifesting to the world the 
glory of God. 



LVII, 



^oJjat* 




ROM light came Colors. Color being Q^£^' 
a simple idea is incapable of defini- 
tion, and, like other simple ideas, 
needs none. The word red conveys as clear a 
notion of the color designated as any defini- 
tion could convey of something else. 

The primary colors of nature are seven in 
number, and by transmitting rays of sunlight 
through a triangular glass prism, they may be 
partially separated from each other and thrown 
upon a screen. This beautiful object is called 
the Solar Spectrttm^ and the separation of the 
different colors is owing to the different de- 
grees by which they are refracted or bent up- 
ward in passing through the prism. The red 

rays being bent the least, appear, of course, at 

275 



2*J& THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the bottom of the spectrum or image upon the 
screen, and the violet being bent the most, 
appear at the top. Thus the order of the col- 
ors forming the spectrum, commencing at the 
bottom, is red, orange, yellow, green, blue 
(light), blue (dark), and violet. The rainbow 
is a solar spectrum in nature, formed by the 
sun's rays passing through a shower instead 
of a prism, and thrown upon the opposite 
clouds for a screen, and if the rainbow is per- 
fect, as it sometimes is, all the seven colors 
may be clearly discerned. In the spectrum 
the change between any two colors is not 
abrupt, but the transition is gradual from one 
hue to another, so that the different colored 
rays and variations of them are, in fact, innu- 
merable. Thus we have all shades of color, 
some of them having distinct names, and many 
others to which no specific name is applied. 

Color, then, is not a quality or property of 
objects in nature or art, but is a matter of 
light simply, and hence, when light is with- 
drawn from them, they have no longer any 
color, but blackness enshrouds them all indis- 
criminately. Nothing is red, or yellow, or 
green, essentially, but these different aspects 



COLOR. 277 

come entirely from light, and the color of an 
object depends upon the rays of light which it 
most fully reflects to the eye. A red rose and 
white rose are the same and undistinguishable 
in a dark room. Admit the light and one of 
them is red because it reflects to the eye the 
red rays of light and absorbs the others. The 
white rose is white because it absorbs almost 
none of the rays of any color, but reflects 
them nearly or quite all to the eye, and thus 
appears of the color, so to speak, of light it- 
self So the sky is blue, as we say, not that 
there is any sky, or, if there were, that it is 
blue, but because the atmosphere, as we look 
up into it, reflects to our eyes the blue rays of 
light instead of others. Coal is black because, 
as we look at it, it reflects to the eye but few 
rays of light, but absorbs nearly all of them. - 

Now, why it is that some roses reflect to 
our eyes red rays and absorb the rest, that an 
orange reflects to us yellowish rays and ab- 
sorbs the rest, that grass reflects the green 
rays and absorbs the others, and so of the 
whole ? These are among the questions that 
human sagacity fails to answer. All, I think, 
that we can say is that they were divinely 



2/8 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

constituted so ; a certain unknown permanent 
quality or qualities being enstamped upon all 
material objects, by virtue of which they re- 
flect to our eyes one class of rays instead of 
others, while these others are absorbed and 
unseen. 

And here, also, is another of the wonderfully 
benevolent arrangements. Beautiful, indeed, 
and ever glorious is light, as we have faintly 
portrayed, but what would even light be to us 
were all material objects so constructed as to 
reflect to our eyes all the light that falls upon 
them, or to reflect none of this light, or to re- 
flect only one of the seven primary hues ? 
Then, in the first case, an undistinguishable 
and sickening whiteness would overspread the 
world, or, in the second case, a universal black- 
ness would enshroud all nature, or, in the third 
case, a world of unvaried and permanent green, 
or red, or blue would be spread out before us ; 
in other words, such a sad arrangement would 
be equivalent to condemning man and beast to 
universal blindness. Light thus arranged, and 
we constituted as we are, '* having eyes we 
should see not,'' an interminable and ghastly 
blank would be ever before us ; nor would it 



COLOR. 279 

matter whether it were white or black, green 
or red, and these eyes of ours, so skillfully and 
curiously wrought, might as well be changed 
to stones. 

How different from all this is the actual ar- 
rangement ! What a world of transcendent 
beauty bursts upon us from this divine con- 
trivance of colors, and this corresponding 
contrivance whereby different objects reflect to 
our vision the different colors, and this marvel- 
ous capacity of the eye, also divine, by which 
we can distinguish not only the primary and 
more obvious hues, but those numberless and 
nameless slighted shades constantly passing 
before us amid the multitudinous walks and 
pursuits of human life ! Thus, what a world of 
glory, did we but know it, is ever opened up 
before us ! amid what a scene of enchantment 
are we ever moving, and breathing, and con- 
templating, and expatiating ! Colors ! Daugh- 
ters of Hght ! Fountains of beauty and of 
life-long and unspeakable delight ! Sources of 
glorious art, and lovely almoners of nature's 
resplendent, magnificent garniture ! One of 
the excellent gifts of an infinitely excellent 
God! 



LVIII. 



^ound* 




HEN you speak of light and colors y 
you speak of what is entirely external 
to sensation. But in speaking of 
Sound it is not precisely so, for though sound 
seems to be outside of us as truly as light, yet, 
in reality, it is otherwise. 

Sound has been described as a sensation 
produced in the mind by vibrations of the air 
beating upon the drum of the ear. This affec- 
tion of the tympanum or drum of the ear is 
communicated to the auditory nerve, and the 
sensation or sound ensues. 

If such a theory is true, as I suppose it is, 

then a sensitive ear and vibrations of the air 

in contact with it are indispensable to sound. 

Were there an ear ever so perfect and sensitive, 
280 



SOUND. 281 

without the vibrations of the air upon it there 
would be no sound, and, on the other hand, 
were there ever so many, and ever so violent 
agitations of the air with no ear for them 
to touch, there would equally be no sound. 
The simultaneous crashing of a thousand 
thunders would go out in perfect and absolute 
silence. 

Wonderfully various and numerous are the 
sounds or voices of nature around us. It is 
curious that scarcely a moment passes us un- 
accompanied by some sound. The apartment 
where I am now writing is one of the stillest, 
and it is one of nature's quiet hours, yet the 
voices of whispering breezes are breaking 
through the lattice — notes of distant music 
are floating on the air. I mark the indistinct 
sounds of a car-bell as some train is just issu- 
ing from the depot, and bird-notes are h'ere and 
there amid the listening tree-tops, while some 
indefinite and ceaseless murmur is abroad. I 
awake in the dark and stilly night and listen. 
Even now the silence is never perfect, nor is 
the world ever entirely asleep and still. Were 
any of us to note such a moment, it would be 
to us one of the strangest of our experiences ; 



282 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

and, doubtless, we should hasten to disturb the 
unearthly and awful stillness. 

Sound is not instantaneous, but travels from 
the sounding object to the ear at the rate of 
a little more than i,ioo feet in a second. 
Hence, when the sounding object is at a dis- 
tance and yet in sight, the sound is a little 
after the sight. Thus, if you glance at a dis- 
tant woodman as he swings his ax, you will 
observe that the ax falls a moment before you 
hear its stroke. So distant thunder is heard 
some time after you see the lightning. Thus 
by counting the seconds between seeing the 
lightning and hearing the thunder, and multi- 
plying the number by i,ioo, you have the dis- 
tance in feet of the thunder-cloud. Were 
there to be a visible and audible thunder- 
shower at the moon, at six o'clock in the 
morning, we should hear the thunder at seven 
o'clock in the evening of the same day — thir- 
teen hours after the sound started from the 
moon. Or should there transpire at the sun, 
at New Year, some great convulsion, whose 
report could travel to the earth, it would reach 
us on the 5 th of the following August. 

The variety of sounds which the ear is 



SOUND. 283 

capable of hearing, while it is limited, is yet ex- 
tremely great. Take a single sound ; you can 
imagine that such a sound may have hundreds 
of degrees of loudness, all of which the ear 
is competent to hear. Then take each one of 
these sounds of different loudness, and to each 
-one of them you may assign a multitude of 
different keys — descending with each one to 
the profoundest bass, and ascending to the 
intensest imaginable sharpness, and all within 
the ear's capacity to hear and endure. 

And then consider how few, comparatively, 
of the countless sounds we hear are positively 
disagreeable. Nature's voices, especially, are, 
almost all of them, pleasant voices. It is true, 
there is the thunder-crash, the whirlwind and 
tornado, the earthquake rumblings, and some 
others ; yet some of these, but for associated 
ideas of danger and calamity, would not be 
unwelcome. But listen to the more common 
and ordinary breathings ; those sprightly and 
varied notes of a thousand feathered tribes ; 
those songs of the winds, now gentle and 
sweet as shepherds' lutes, now grand and 
glorious as the chorus of a thousand organs ; 
the deep and solemn voice of the ocean as it 



284 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

rolls forth its ''everlasting bass in nature's 
anthem ;" the soft rustling of ripening and gor- 
geous harvests waving afar; the gentle mur- 
muring of brooks and rivulets gliding along 
their winding way ; the sweet lispings of lake or 
river as their limpid wavelets kiss the sunny 
shores ; the voices of love and goodness breath- 
ing amid myriads of happy homes ; the shouts 
of joyous childhood mingling with the blithe- 
some morning breeze ; and last, but not least, 
the worship of the "great and goodly fellow- 
ship,'' going out in glorious song as the sound 
of many waters — the opening notes of the 
grand chorus of immortality. 

It is true, the sounds that come to us are 
not all harmonious and pure. More or less of 
discord is abroad, and there are notes and 
voices that grate harshly and sadly upon the 
ear. There is evil with the good — cursings 
mingle with the blessings. But beware, my 
child, that thou blame not the God of nature, 
from whom comes naught but eternal harmony. 



LIX. 



^tmosph^r^* M 




S so many of the topics thus far dis- 
cussed are intimately related to the 
atmosphere, it seems to be time that 
I invite your attention to so important a theme. 

This word — Atmosphere — comes from two 
Greek words — atmoSy meaning vapor, and 
sphaira, meaning sphere. A sphere of vapor, 
then, is the atmosphere, and it envelops the 
earth as a garment. 

The atmosphere, or air, is a fluid substance, 
composed mainly by the mixture of two gases, 
oxygen and nitrogen. There is also in the 
composition a slight quantity of aqueous or 
watery vapor, and a slighter quantity still of 
carbonic acid gas. If you divide a quantity of 

ordinary air into one hundred parts, there will 

285 



286 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

be by weight, and nearly by measure, of nitro- 
gen, a little more than 75 J parts ; oxygen, about 
23 J parts; aqueous vapor, about one part, and 
of carbonic acid, one-tenth of one part. 

Such is almost exactly the air we inhale 
from the first moment after our birth till we 
cease to breathe at death. 

And right here, my young friends, let us 
pause, for a moment, and wonder and adore. 
These four ingredients composing the atmos- 
phere, and the proportion of each one, are ex- 
actly right, and exactly adapted to the consti- 
tution of man and of the lower animals. Any 
variation, though slight, of the proportions, as 
above specified, would prove injurious to us; 
any considerable variation would render the 
air unfit to breathe, and would prove fatal. 
Diminish, for example, the nitrogen, and in- 
crease the oxygen, and the wheels of life would 
begin at once to revolve too rapidly, and vital- 
ity would be expanded prematurely, and we 
should be hurried onward toward death. On 
the other hand, diminish the oxygen, and lan- 
guor, weariness, and lifelessness would ensue, 
and disease would- soon finish us. Remove 
the aqueous vapor, and much of the grateful 



ATMOSPHERE. 28/ 

freshness of the atmosphere would be gone, 
attended, doubtless, by one and another evil 
consequence. Increase the carbonic acid from 
one-tenth of one per cent, to five or six per 
cent, and you have rendered the air unfit to 
breathe. Substitute for one-tenth of one per 
cent, of carbonic acid, one whole per cent, of 
carbonic oxide, which combines one atom of 
oxygen instead of two with one atom of car- 
bpn, and our breathing would at once poison 
us to death. In a word, make any alteration 
of the air whatever, whether of elements or 
proportions of elements, and you have altered 
it for the worse. Just as the atmosphere is, it 
is the best possible ; and every time we inhale 
it, at every breath we draw, we should breathe 
out gratitude, love, and worship to Him who 
has formed for us this among thousands of 
other admirable adaptations. So absolutely 
perfect is this fitness that in favorable circum- 
stances we breathe, during .all the day, with en- 
tire ease, as if inhaling the very spirit of peace 
and happiness, as well as of health and life. 

As a further illustration, let me state that a 
person, breathing in the ordinary atmosphere, 
inhales a very different air from that which, at 



288 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

the next moment, he breathes out from his 
lungs. He breathes in the pure air, air having 
its one-tenth of one per cent, of carbonic acid. 
But he breathes out an atmosphere charged 
with 4j per cent, of this acid. But off goes 
the breath into the boundless atmosphere, and, 
at the next inhaling, he draws in the pure air 
again, and all is well. 

Let this same person, however, go into a 
crowded assembly of people. All are breath- 
ing, of course; and from a thousand breaths 
are borne out, every moment, an atmosphere, 
loaded with at least 4J per cent, of carbonic 
acid gas. Meanwhile, the space is limited and 
confined, and ventilation is neglected, and the 
air of the apartment is becoming more and 
more impregnated with the poisonous gas, 
while the oxygen is, every moment, diminish- 
ing. Distress, of course, ensues, breathing is 
labored and unrefreshing. It is not so bad as 
to be under water, or even to be enveloped in 
a dense and suffocating smoke, and yet there 
is a partial suffocation. The air is changed. 
It is not the blessed, native air. It is not the 
air that God has made ; a poisonous element 
has entered, in frightful quantities. 



ATMOSPHERE. 289 

#»! I tHijail^ m->4k4g ^ij pyj[.^^ ^ into its com- 

position. Another element — the element of 
life itself — has alarmingly diminished. We 
are out of our natural element ; pain is upon 
us ; disease is hard by ; and death is just be- 
yond. Let us up and away ! How good ! how 
perfect ! how like the very breath of life, when 
this man issues forth again into the atmos- 
phere that the Divine Hand fashioned, com- 
pounded, and fitted for him ! 

You may have read the tragic story of the 
" Black Hole " at Calcutta, in India. If not, 
indulge this slight sketch : On the capture of 
the city from the British in 1756, Surajah 
Dowlah, the Indian nabob, ordered the British 
garrison of one hundred and forty-six men to 
be confined in the dungeon of the fortress — a 
room about eighteen feet square. There were 
but two windows, both upon one side of the 
room, and strongly barred, and admitting but 
little air from without. Into this one small 
apartment, on a hot night in June, all the 
hundred and forty-six men were crowded. So 
thickly they stood that the door was with dif- 
ficulty closed upon them. In a few moments 
they were all in a perfect perspiration — then 

19 



290 TFIE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

came on raging thirst, and such was their 
agony that they strove to provoke the guards 
outside to fire in upon them and kill them. 
By nine o'clock in the evening several were 
dead, and as the night advanced all self-control 
was lost. Those in remote parts of the room 
struggled to reach the windows, and a dreadful 
tumult ensued, in which many were trampled 
to death. They raved, fought, prayed, blas- 
phemed, and many fell exhausted to the floor, 
where suffocation came to their relief. Mean- 
while the odor filling the dungeon was most 
deadly, and every moment became more so, 
and toward midnight the poor victims began 
to drc^ off in rapid succession. At six in the 
morning, when the door was ordered to be 
opened, only twenty-three out of the hundred 
and forty-six were alive, and these were either 
stupefied or raving. 

The Indian tyrant had withdrawn from these 
poor prisoners the vital air, and they perished. 



LX. 



Jitmaspherje* (^) 




F the four elements composing the 
atmosphere, oxygen is the positive 
and capital one. Nitrogen seems 
designed to serve as a sort of mollilier for 
restraining the too active influence of the 
fiery oxygen, like as water is mingled with 
spirits to reduce and temper their strength 
and energy. It is, of itself, utterly devoid of 
life-giving energy, and were the oxygen with- 
drawn from it, breathing would be as com- 
pletely impossible as in a vacuum. 

The presence of the aqueous element is 
seen by placing a pitcher of cold water upon 
the table in a warm room. The warm air 
coming in contact with the vessel is cooled, 

and thus its capacity for holding water is 

291 



292 



THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 



diminished, and the water settles as fine dew 
upon the outside surface of the pitcher. It is, 
in fact, dew, this being, as we have already 
noticed, nothing more or less than the visible 
moisture deposited by the air upon a surface 
cooler than itself 

As in the composition of the atmosphere 
carbonic acid gas bears so small a part, being 
by weight only one-thousandth of the whole, 
and as air that is breathed comes back from 
the lungs loaded with 4J per cent, of this same 
gas, some of you may be led to ask, when so 
much carbonic acid is continually going out 
into the atmosphere from men and animals, 
and from age to age, why it does not increase 
and become, in time, a larger element of the 
atmosphere, and even so large as to become 
destructive. Such an inquiry is rational ; and 
here is suggested to my young readers another 
of the Divine arrangements as admirable as it 
is wonderful, and which may well excite emo- 
tions of lofty praise and worship. There 
seems no reason why the disastrous influence 
alluded to should not transpire and even pro- 
gress indefinitely until the whole animal crea- 
tion were destroyed, but for the simple and 



ATMOSPHERE. 263 

Divine compensation that has been established 
This compensation is thus : While the animal 
world, in respiration, consumes oxygen and 
dismisses carbon into the atmosphere, the veg- 
etable world, in the presence of sunshine, lives 
by precisely the reverse process ; for respira- 
tion, though different from that of animals, 
belongs to vegetables also, and these, as they 
respire in the day-time, consume carbon and 
dismiss oxygen to the air, and thus the life- 
giving element is perpetually renewed, while 
the life-destroying element is perpetually re- 
pressed. The universal animal breathing tends 
to annihilate all the oxygen of the atmosphere, 
and fatally poison this atmosphere with car- 
bon ; but the universal vegetable breath catches 
up and hides away the carbon, and replaces 
the lost oxygen. 




LXI. 



^tmcxspheve. (30 




HE atmosphere enveloping this great 
globe is immensely abundant. Over 
all the earth there is no lack, and no- 
where in open space is there a thought of any 
scarcity of the ''vital element." By careful 
calculation it is estimated that it extends up- 
ward about forty-five miles above the earth. 
The region of air near the earth has, of course, 
the greatest density, being pressed upon by 
the weight of all above, like as when several 
fleeces of wool are spread one upon another 
the lowest fleece becomes the most flattened 
and solid, while the upper one remains in its 
natural condition. Thus the atmosphere, also, 
grows lighter and thinner as you ascend 
through it, until, at the height of about four 
294 



ATMOSPHERE. 295 

miles, it becomes insufficient for breathing, and 
respiration is difficult. Meanwhile, at such a 
great height, the ordinary air within the per- 
son not meeting sufficient pressure from with- 
out, expands and causes the system to swell 
painfully, and sometimes produces eruption of 
blood-vessels and other injurious effects. And 
were it possible to ascend eight or ten miles 
above the earth it is quite certain that the 
atmosphere there would be inadequate to sus- 
tain life. 

Here, then, is another of the excellent 
adaptations, showing the hand of a wise and 
benevolent Creator. As the air in its compo- 
sition is exactly right, so, also, in its degree of 
density upon the earth's plains it is precisely 
adapted to respiration. We were not designed 
to dwell on the summits of lofty mountains, 
but the '' lower parts of the earth " are ordered 
for the habitations of men, and there the at- 
mosphere is neither too dense on the one hand 
nor too light on the other, but its correspond- 
ence with the constitution of our lungs and 
entire system is perfect. 

It is curious that this invisible medium that 
is all about us and within us, and which seems 



296 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

SO extremely thin and light, should yet be a 
veritable and material substance, and, taken as 
a body, of inconceivable weight as it rests 
down upon the solid earth. The weight of a 
column of air resting upon a square inch of 
the earth's surface, and extending up through 
the whole depth of forty-five miles, is fifteen 
pounds ; hence, the pressure being the same 
in all directions, downward, upward, and later- 
ally, the entire weight of atmosphere pressing 
upon a man of ordinary size is about three 
tons. Such a pressure would, of course, be 
fatal to him were it not exactly counterbal- 
anced by the air within, and by which every 
part of the person is pervaded and filled. And 
please not forget this one also of the innumer- 
able Divine compensations. 

Starting with this data of fifteen pounds of 
air on each square inch, you have only to prac- 
tice a little arithmetic to ascertain the entire 
weight of the atmosphere as it rests upon the 
globe. Reduce to square inches the two hun- 
dred millions of square miles comprised in the 
earth's surface, multiply by fifteen and divide 
by two thousand, and you have the great re- 
sult in tons ; or reduce one square mile to 



ATMOSPHERE. 297 

square inches, multiply by two hundred mill- 
ions, and that product by fifteen, and divide by 
two thousand. Your result will be, in tons, 
60,137,344x10^; that is, sixty millions, one 
hundred and thirty-seven thousand, three hun- 
dred and forty-four, multiplied by ten, raised to 
the eighth power, or 6,013,734,400,000,000 tons, 
a number which you may enumerate at your 
leisure. So true is it that the earth's atmos- 
phere, considered as a mere substance, is no 
trifle, light and airy though it seem. Nor yet 
so very "light and airy'' even the seeming. 
Its still, soft calms, its slight breezes whisper- 
ing by us, are indeed ever so light and gentle. 
But when this great atmospheric world takes 
on one of its swift and mighty movements, and 
goes rushing, and roaring, and tearing over 
land and sea, hurling aloft men aind trees, and 
houses and fences, and carrying devastation 
and ruin in its wild and terrible career, then 
we begin to realize that this invisible some- 
thing above and around us is a "something" 
indeed, a reality, so to speak, with a ven- 
geance ! 

The elasticity of the atmosphere is one of 
its deeply interesting qualities. To so remark- 



298 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

able degree is it thus characterized that a por- 
tion of it has been known to expand to two 
thousand times its ordinary bulk. By its elas- 
tic energy it is ever ready to spring into every 
vacancy or vacuum. A beautiful instance of 
this is seen in the process of respiration. No 
sooner is the air inflating the lungs expired or 
breathed out and a vacuum created there than 
the air without springs in to fill up the vacant 
spaces. Thus, every moment we are enjoying 
the indispensable benefit of this quality of the 
atmosphere, and, perhaps, without a thought 
about it from morning to evening. A common 
air-pump — an instrument for exhausting the 
air from a vessel — will show you the operation 
of the elasticity of the air. Place under the 
glass receiver to be exhausted a collapsed 
bladder containing but little air, and then with- 
draw the air from the receiver, and the small 
quantity of air within the bladder will expand 
as the outside air is removed from it ; then 
admit the air again to the receiver and the 
bladder collapses to its former condition by the 
expansion of the air around it. From the 
elasticity of the air comes its use for springs, 
air-beds, air-guns, and other things. 



LXII. 



igjimat^* 




HE term Climate is commonly under- 
stood as denoting the temperature of 
a place, its degree of heat and cold ; 
and the comparative climates of different local- 
ities of the earth present a subject of much 
interest to the curious student. 

It is a general law touching climate, that the 
torrid zone, as noticed in a former sketch, com- 
prises the warmest region of the globe, and 
the frigid zone the coldest, while from the for- 
mer to the latter zone the temperature some- 
what regularly diminishes. This may be said 
to be generally true, and it would be invariably 
and universally true were there not certain 
counteracting influences, which operate to dis- 
turb, in many localities, the regular gradation 

299 



300 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

of heat and cold in passing from the equator 
to the poles. At first thought it might seem 
that on the same line of latitude the climate 
would be the same all around the world ; as, 
for example, Washington City and San Fran- 
cisco being very nearly on the same line of 
latitude, some one might infer that the climate 
of the two cities is equally warm or cold. So 
of Quebec and Paris ; so of the northern ex- 
tremity of Newfoundland and the city of Lon- 
don ; so of North Labrador and Stockholm. 
But a greater mistake could hardly be made 
than that the climates of these places respect- 
ively are alike or nearly so. So far is this from 
being the fact that the climate of Washington, 
at 39°, is about the same as that of Puget 
Sound, ten degrees further north ; and the cli- 
mate of Paris, at 48^°, is like that of Philadel- 
phia at 40° ; and the climate of London, at 5 1 J°, 
instead of being like that of northern New- 
foundland, though of the same latitude, nearly 
corresponds with that of Richmond, Va., at 
37j°; and the temperature of Stockholm, at 
59°, instead of being similar to northern Lab- 
rador in the same latitude, is not very different 
from that of Bangor, Maine, at 44° 



CLIMATE. 301 

If now you ask, as you certainly will, How 
does this happen ? the general answer must be 
that it is owing largely to the irregular distri- 
bution of land and water upon the globe. If 
the earth were all water and without any 
northern or southern currents, or if it were all 
land, a plain, uniform surface, without hills or 
depressions, in either event the climate on any 
given parallel of latitude would be the same 
the world around. This sameness actually ex- 
ists, to a great extent, on the parallels of the 
far south — those parallels that encompass the 
globe without crossing any considerable land, 
as from the fortieth parallel downward. You 
will ask, then, how the intervention of land 
effects so great a difference of temperature in 
regions of the same latitude ? Your atlases 
instruct you that the great continents of both 
hemispheres push up broadly toward and 
around the North Pole. More than three- 
fourths of North America, for example, lies 
north of the fiftieth parallel, and spreading it- 
self thence toward the pole, hugs it, including 
Greenland, nearly half around. The entire 
extent of this immense region, including its 
frozen bays and inlets, together with the great 



302 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Arctic Ocean beyond, is, a great portion of the 
year, one vast realm of cold and desolation, 
mainly the domain of everlasting Winter. All 
across this bleak space of thousands of miles 
the north-west wind — one of our prevalent 
winds — sweeps over the eastern half of the 
United States. Hither is wafted the cold at- 
mosphere of these northern regions, while, as 
it is borne onward, it meets with little to mol- 
lify the temperature with which it started on 
its long journey hitherward. It comes from 
realms of cold, it sweeps along other frosty 
realms as it comes, it reaches us a frosty Arc- 
tic atmosphere, spreading itself over our plains, 
and hills, and coasts, and essentially and per- 
manently affecting the climate of our country. 
Thus it is with the eastern portion of the 
North American continent, and likewise with 
the corresponding portion of the Eastern or 
Asiatic continent. Both of these portions of 
the world are powerfully aifected, as to their 
climate, by winds sweeping from cold regions 
of the earth, and traversing, as they come, in- 
tervening lands which are also cold. 

Very different is it, on the other hand, with 
the countries which have the great oceans for 



CLIMATE. 303 

their western boundaries instead of a wide 
reach of cold and icy country. Such are 
Western Europe and our own Pacific coast. 
The winds that reach these countries from the 
west and north-west, instead of coming across 
wide realms of frost, sweep over extensive and 
open seas, which tend to moderate the temper- 
ature of the atmosphere moving over them. 
Moreover, warm ocean currents flowing north- 
ward from equatorial seas, and crossing the 
ocean, bear with them to those favored coun- 
tries a milder atmosphere. Such is the famous 
Gulf Stream of the Atlantic, while late dis- 
coveries reveal a corresponding stream, one or 
more, coursing northward and eastward through 
the great Pacific, and reaching by its influence 
the Pacific States and territories. Such are, 
doubtless, the main causes operating to work 
so great a diflerence between our climate and 
that of corresponding latitudes on the opposite 
side of the Atlantic, and also the opposite Pa- 
cific shores. 



LXIII. 



Winds* 




AVING written of the atmosphere 
and of cHmate, the subject of Winds 
is very naturally suggested, for wind, 
as you are aware, is nothing else than the 
atmosphere in a state of motion. Sometimes 
the atmosphere is still ; we call this a calm. 
Sometimes there is a gentle movement of the 
air. This, though a wind, is more generally 
called a breeze. If this increases considerably, 
we call it a wind; if it increases very much, 
we speak of it as a strong wind, a high wind, 
or a gale. If it becomes intense, it is a mighty 
wind. The more gentle movements of the 
air, or what we call breezes, are generally 
agreeable, and often delightful. Nature then 
seems animated and sprightly, the spirit of 
304 



WINDS. 305 

health seems moving along the air. If the 
temperature be high, the breathing of the 
atmosphere affords a cooling influence, while 
the music of waving foliage is grateful to the 
ear. And it is worthy of being remembered 
that this breezy condition of the atmosphere 
is the prevailing condition in most habitable 
countries of the world. Nearly all localities 
have their storm-winds — the more violent dis- 
turbances of the air above them. But these 
are rather the exceptions than the general 
order, and the normal condition of the atmos- 
phere of the earth is one of comparative quiet. 

This, too, is one of the arrangements flow- 
ing from the Divine benevolence and goodness ; 
for the atmosphere, though invisible, and, for 
the most part, quiet, is yet a fearful element, 
and in its seasons of storm-fury is sometimes 
frightful and destructive beyond most other 
earthly agencies. 

The air being an exceedingly thin and elas- 
tic fluid, is agitated and disturbed with the 
utmost ease, and thus the constant occurrence 
of breezes and winds is natural and inevitable. 
Two grand causes of atmospheric disturb- 
ances, or winds, are heat and moisture. Let 



306 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

a portion of the atmosphere become heated 
above the temperature of the surrounding por- 
tions and disturbance ensues. The heated air 
tends, at once, to expand and ascend, and con- 
tinues to ascend till, by the cooler air aloft, it 
is reduced to the same temperature. But if 
this heated air tends to ascend, the surround- 
ing cooler air will equally tend to flow in to 
supply its place and restore the equilibrium. 
This drifting in of surrounding air is wind. 
You might naturally suppose that in the event 
named, the surrounding air would rush in 
equally from all directions ; and this would be 
so if the condition of the atmosphere were 
entirely alike at all points of the compass 
around the heated region. But this might be 
or might not be. For some reason, or reasons, 
the drifting in of air from one direction might 
be with a much greater momentum than from 
any other, and this current would predominate 
over all others, and might sweep in not only 
to the heated region, but far beyond it in the 
same direction. 

Moisttire, as well as heat, is a cause of winds, 
and it is partly on this wise: As from the 
sea or lakes and rivers, and moist lands, 



WINDS. 307 

evaporation proceeds, and as the vapor, being 
lighter than air, rises, as smoke ascends, more 
or less air is borne upward with the vapor, and 
thus the airy equilibmum beneath is disturbed, 
and winds are the consequence. Sometimes 
the contrary process is a fact. Away in the 
upper air immense quantities of vapor are 
condensed by cold, and thus becoming heavier 
than the air, gradually settle toward the earth 
and press upon the underlying air, and again 
the equilibrium is disturbed, and the pressed 
air flows outward instead of inward — a wind 
in the opposite direction. In connection with 
this, it should be remembered that only a 
small disturbance of the airy equilibrium, 
whether by heat, or moisture, or both com- 
bined, is often sufficient to occasion a consid- 
erable wind. 

The fact has already occurred to you that 
winds are variable. Sometimes they come 
from one point of the compass, and sometimes 
another. This variableness of the winds is 
specially characteristic of the temperate zones, 
while in the torrid and frigid zones there is 
more uniformity. In the torrid zone, for^ ex- 
ample, and in the neighborhood of the equator 



308 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

is a region of heated and rarefied air extending 
around the world. In this equatorial belt the 
heated air is continually ascending into higher 
regions of the atmosphere, whence a portion 
of it floats northward, and another portion 
southward. To supply the place of this air at 
and near the equator, another portion of air 
starting from twenty-five to thirty degrees 
north and south latitude, drifts in toward the 
equator. The air from north of the equator 
approaches it in a south-west direction, and 
that from south of the equator in a north- 
west direction. These two winds are uniform, 
and are called Trade- Winds, from the assist- 
ance they afford to commerce — vessels sailing 
westward taking advantage of these whenever 
practicable. For such is the regularity of 
these winds that ships within their influence 
are enabled to sail thousands of miles, without 
altering their course or changing a sail. 

This phenomenon of the regularity of the 
trade-winds would be the same entirely around 
the world but for a cause which I will now 
name to you. The torrid zone, in the Eastern 
hem^isphere, includes large tracts of land as 
well as water. Under the torrid sun this land 



U 

OS 

b 
W 




WINDS. 309 

becomes much more heated than the neigh- 
boring waters. South Hindostan, for instance, 
becomes a more heated region than the Ara- 
bian Sea or Indian Ocean. The consequence 
of this is that the regular current of the trade- 
winds is disturbed and a new wind-current is 
created opposite to the regular current. From 
the Indian Ocean a wind, instead of continuing 
uniformly toward south-west, sets in north- 
eastward toward the heated territory of Hindo- 
stan. Also, from the seas north of Australia, 
a current, instead of continuing north-west, 
the regular direction, drifts directly south-east 
and south, toward the heated region of that 
great island. These are the counter-winds 
that are called Monsoons^ and are often fright- 
fully violent and destructive. 

The winds of the temperate zones, as we 
have already remarked, are variable, having 
no such regularity as those of the torrid zone. 
The prevailing winds, however, are westerly, 
the south-west and north-west winds being 
the more common winds of the north temper- 
ate zone. Easterly winds are frequent on and 
near the Atlantic coast, and are often attended 
with storms of rain in warm weather, and of 



3IO THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

snow in the Winter season. The south-west 
wind, as you might expect, is a warm wind, 
and, if it continues for two or three days, is 
wont to be attended with rain. The north- 
west is a cool wind, and in this country, at 
least, is almost invariably attended with fair 
weather. 




LXIV. 



Whirlwinds. 




HIRLWINDS are winds whose course, 
instead of being direct, is circular or 
spiral. They differ extremely in the 
velocity and force of their motion. Some- 
times they appear in the shape of a small and 
gentle eddy gliding by, and lifting light sub- 
stances, as straws or dust, from the earth as 
they pass. For, in addition to their whirl- 
ing motion, they have a progressive motion 
along the earth, sometimes moderate, and, at 
other times, of great swiftness. At times, 
they rush along the earth and around their 
axis with awful violence, carrying destruction 
in their path, which, in breadth, covers a space 
of from two or three hundred yards to as many 
miles. When their path is narrow they are 

311 



312 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

frequently called Tornadoes, from the Spanish 
word tornar, to return. The tornado appears 
suddenly under a clear sky, is of great vio- 
lence, advances rapidly along the eafth, and is 
of brief duration. 

Another form of the whirlwind is that called 
Cyclo7tey which seems to be noticed mostly as 
traversing over seas. It does not, like the tor- 
nado, come down as out of a clear sky, but is 
said to set in during a protracted rain-storm, 
with a path from one hundred to five hundred 
or six hundred miles wide, and advancing along 
the ocean with a comparatively slow motion. 

The name Typhoon, from the Greek tuphouy 
bears a meaning nearly similar to the term 
cyclone, although a wider signification is often 
given to the word, being used to express a vio- 
lent or parching wind, though not a whirlwind. 

Every form of a violent whirlwind is fright- 
ful and terrible in the highest' degree. Few 
situations imaginable are more awful than to 
be in or near the center of the path of a tor- 
nado as it goes whirling and sweeping across 
the country. Its coming is sudden, and all at 
once the world grows dark, and there is a 
rushing, roaring sound, such as is never heard 



WHIRLWINDS. 313 

elsewhere, and which is too terrible for de- 
scription. A wind is raging such as might 
seem sufificient to sweep the world away. Be- 
fore it nothing escapes. Trees are prostrated, 
houses are demolished, every fence is swept 
from the landscape, the darkened air is filled 
with various matters and things that are lit- 
erally blown away, and the day of doom has 
already come to more than one precious life. 
It is but a brief moment and the great car of 
desolation and ruin is soon gone by. Such as 
have survived and find themselves uninjured, 
experience within themselves a momentary 
emotion of unutterable relief, and perhaps clap 
their hands for exceeding joy. But a scene of 
utter desolation is all about them. Every tree 
and dwelling is laid low, nothing is left as it 
was only ten minutes ago, and there are al- 
ready heard the groans and cries of wounded 
and dying people. One and another are al- 
ready dead, and others are missing, having 
been hurled into the air, and have fallen 
broken and, perhaps, lifeless somewhere. It 
is one of the frightful and heart-rending trage- 
dies now and then occurring along life's check- 
ered way. 



314 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Nor are all these terrible storm-winds so 
very unfrequent even in our own favored coun- 
try, especially in the great Mississippi Valley. 
During the season of 1859 I counted as many 
as a dozen of these awful disturbances, several 
of which occurred in different parts of the 
State of Illinois ; one passing eight or ten 
miles south of my residence, sweeping every 
thing before it, and destroying several lives. 
Shortly after, another rushed by and partly 
over me, giving me a moment's experience 
such as I never knew before, and such as I 
pray may never be repeated. If ever a dark 
and terrible ruin seemed imminent, it was dur- 
ing those few seconds. But it passed on, and 
with it went one of those moments of life, hap- 
pily but few with the multitude, surcharged 
with unspeakable terror and alarm. 

But the whirlwind, whether in the shape of 
the tornado or the cyclone, is not the only 
frightful and destructive wind. The Sirocco of 
the Mediterranean realms, and the Simoon of 
Syria, Arabia, and India, are also dreadful vis- 
itations ; they are similar winds, blowing with 
great violence and for a considerable time, all 
charged with terrible heat, and exert a sufifoca- 



WHIRLWINDS. 315 

ting influence on men and animals, and a blast- 
ing effect upon the vegetable world over which 
they sweep. The sirocco is a south-east wind 
driving across the Mediterranean from African 
deserts. The simoon also comes from south- 
ern deserts, and, after blowing two or three 
days, becomes very fatal to life. People shut 
themselves up in their houses, and travelers 
over deserts keep within their tents, or dig for 
themselves pits in the sand, and thus hide 
away from the blasting storm, while the 
camels, for self-protection, instantly bury their 
noses in the sand. 




LXV. 



tises of Winjds* 




E have seen that winds are sometimes 
terrible and disastrous, yet these in- 
stances are exceptions and not the 
general rule. The general rule is that they 
are useful. They are, indeed, indispensable. 
Doubtless, if we knew much more than we do, 
we should see that even these destructive 
winds, to which allusion has been made, have 
their beneficial as well as their injurious influ- 
ences, and form a part of a great general plan 
of wise and benevolent operations always being 
wrought out under the hand of the great Fa- 
ther of all. 

But if we can not see all this, let us turn 
our eyes toward what we can see and appreci- 
ate; and already have we alluded to some of 

316 



USES OF WINDS. 317 

the benefits of winds. We have seen, for ex- 
ample, how that the Trade-Winds are greatly 
beneficial to commerce by enabling vessels in 
their vicinity, and which are bound westward, 
to avail themselves of their uniform and favor- 
able breath, whereby they are borne on their 
course over the sea through days and nights 
without the shifting of a sail. Columbus 
drifted unwittingly within the influence of 
these favoring breezes as he sailed hitherward 
on his first voyage of discovery ; and so regu- 
lar was the westward impulse that the sailors, 
instead of welcoming its aid, became alarmed 
at the regularity of the winds which were so 
constantly driving them away from their 
homes and country, and feared that so unusual 
a phenomenon was but some dreadful and 
fatal breath bearing them on, by day and night, 
toward some unknown catastrophe, and which 
would effectually prevent them from ever re- 
traversing those unknown and lonely seas. 

Nor are the Trade-Winds the only winds 
serviceable to navigation. The variable winds 
are all of value to its great interests, and are 
all pressed into its service. " Head- Winds," 
it is true, must be encountered, and these often 



3l8 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

impede the voyages of vessels upon the seas ; 
yet what are head-winds to a thousand mari- 
ners are the favorable gales to a thousand 
others, who thus are borne swiftly on their 
way toward the ''desired haven." And even 
head-winds, unless they are wild and mighty 
winds, are more welcome to the sailor than 
calms ; for, though they compel him from his 
direct course, yet he knows the maneuverings 
and tactics by which to make even hostile 
winds contribute to his progress. 

We have also alluded before to the refresh- 
ing and invigorating influence of the winds as 
they pass over us. What more irksome and 
wearisome, especially in Summer days, than 
the dead calm of the atmosphere.'^ and in the 
midst of such a calm how animating, how in- 
spiring, and welcome is the springing up of 
delicious breezes, wafting to us fresh drafts 
from out of the deep and inexhaustible cis- 
terns above and beyond us ! How cooling 
and reviving is that new-born breeze ! How 
does it play around us, and lift us up as into 
a stronger and more earnest life ! and how, 
from a scene of inertness and drowsy dullness, 
has it transformed all nature into music, 



USES OF WINDS. 319 

sprightliness, and loveliness ! Who would 
wish to live if life must be endured under the 
dominion of an unending calm ? No gentle 
fanning upon the brow of toil ; the stillness of 
death in all the vast, deep firmament ; no leaf 
stirred, if leaf could be ; no joyous billow 
tumbling ashore ; no ripple on the glassy lake ; 
no waving meadow lands or harvest fields ; no 
whisper among the still and mourning trees — 
one wide, still, dead world, from the crown of 
the head upward and forever ! 

And if winds are often cooling and refresh- 
ing amid Summer heats, so they are as often 
warming and enlivening amid Wintery and 
frosty days. Welcome, after successive days 
of cold and frost, is the drifting in of southern 
breezes, wafting to our Wintery latitude \\i^ UjdAiJjl/l* 
softer airs of more gentle climates ; and as 
they begin to breathe over the snowy and des- 
olate landscape, how soon does Winter unloose 
his icy grip, and how promptly do the snows n, 

dissolve, and the streams and brooks begin to | 

flow again ! 

Winds, too, are indispensable to the distri- 
bution of rain over the countries of the world. 
As evaporation proceeds from the surface of 



320 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

seas, lakes, and rivers, winds are necessary to 
bear the new-formed clouds ashore, that they 
may shed their burden of waters upon the un- 
derlying land. But for winds to perform this 
great service the vapor and the clouds would 
remain suspended above the waters whence 
they originated, and upon these waters they 
would shed their useless rain, which would fall 
directly and perpetually back. The present 
magnificent circulating system of water would 
have no existence. Over the water would be 
incessant rains, and over the land incessant 
sunshine and drought. Not a cloud would 
ever float over us, not a rain-drop would ever 
fall on field or mountain. Of course, the 
world would be one vast and hideous desert, 
without an inhabitant, or tree, or a single 
green thing — as bare, and naked, and fruitless 
as the bald granite of the mountain ledge. 

Also, winds have their uses as mechanical 
agencies, and that not only for the propulsion 
of vessels over seas, but for lifting water from 
wells, for draining purposes, for salt manufact- 
ure, as well as for other useful ends. 

Great is their use, too, for the dissemination 
of various seeds, as thus from trees and other 



USES OF WINDS. 32 1 

plants where they originate they are borne 
through the air and scattered abroad in various 
directions, and sometimes to considerable dis- 
tances. And many kinds of seeds are pro- 
vided with certain appendages, by which they 
may with greater facility be thus wafted 
through the air, and lodge and take root in 
other localities. 

Useful, also, are the winds as they sway 
hither and thither the trunks and limbs of 
trees, thus contributing to their firmness, 
strength, and beauty, and aiding in the circu- 
lation and activity of their juices and their 
healthy growth, as well as the excellence of 
their fruits and foliage. 

Finally, the incessant movements of the at- 
mosphere — movements sometimes violent and 
even terrible — are ever conducive to its preser- 
vation as a salubrious and healthy element. 
Various noxious substances and localities are 
scattered all along the earth, always affecting, 
more or less, the atmosphere coming in contact 
with them. Thus, were there an eternal calm 
and no circulation of the air, much of the earth, 
from this one source alone, would become un- 
fit for habitation. But the winds are ever 

21 



322 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

interfering to prevent this poisoning of the 
atmosphere; sweeping away unhealthy por- 
tions, driving them aloft and over seas, and 
where their salubrity may be more or less re- 
stored, and replacing them with a purer and 
healthier medium. 

Such are some of the uses of winds. Some- 
times dreadful are they, and bear dire destruc- 
tion on their swift and mighty wings ; but, in 
the general, their breath is mild and healthy, 
and their touch is inspiriting and gladdening, 
and their movement graceful as when gentle 
billows roll onward over Summer seas, and 
their voice is Nature's grand and glorious harp, 
whose strains, now soft as infant breathings, 
now loud as many waters, are ever wafted to 
the listening ear, and waking glorious music 
to enchant the world. 




LXVI. 



ltam-$tofms. 



W-: 





INTIMATELY associated with winds 
and the atmosphere are the Storms 
so frequently occurring in most re- 
gions of the earth. We have before alluded 
to those terrible wind-storms, which, under the 
name of whirlwinds, tornadoes, etc., not un- 
frequently take their wild and destructive path 
over land and sea. We now write of those 
ordinary storms — storms of rain, which are 
common in the temperate zones. 

Happily, it is not all "fair weather." Often, 
indeed, there are several days of uninterrupted 
sunshine. No cloud, even of the "bigness of a 
man's hand,'' is seen upon the deep-blue sky. 
Mellow breezes glide over the plains, and whis- 
per amid the trees. The genial air is vocal 

323 



324 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

with bird-notes. The cattle are abroad upon 
a thousand hills. Men and women are intent 
upon business or pleasure, and there is the 
seeming of a world that, in its quietness and 
permanence, never knew storm or change; yet 
we awake on some morning, and looking 
through the lattice " we perceive that it is no 
longer ^*a morning without clouds." On the 
contrary, they are gathering densely and 
darkly. Sun and sky are utterly hidden. A 
different wind from that of yesterday is drift- 
ing in — a damp, raw, and chilly wind, as if it 
came from some cold Atlantic depths. An 
entirely different hue and aspect are enstamped 
upon the world. Another scene spreads itself 
away before us and around us ; another sound 
and voice are in the air. 

"Along the hills, along the moorish fens, 
Sighs the sad genius of the coming storm !" 

Meanwhile the cloudy canopy thickens and 
darkens, and the air dampens and grows 
murky and moist. And then, anon, a fine 
mist is falling, which waxes shortly into a 
steady and determined rain ; and gazing off 
hither and thither to the farthest horizon there 



RAIN-STORMS. 325 

seems to be rain every -where. The wide 
world, yesterday so sunny and bright, blue 
above and radiant and brilliant beneath, is now 
turned into a world of rain, and warm airs are 
changed into such as are chilly and cheerless. 
I am looking now out upon such a storm. All 
''out-of-doors" is wet and somber. Overhead 
is one vast, dark, and unbroken cloud, cover- 
ing all the welkin. It seems to have taken 
the place of the beautiful, blue sky, and has 
the look of intending to remain up there, as if 
it were hereafter to be the normal condition 
of the firmament ; for who can push aside 
the enormous mass that it should not hover 
over us forever.'^ 

And so it rains, rains ! All over those dis- 
tant hills and woods there is naught but rain 
and gloom, and, near by, the roofs are all drip- 
ping, and the smoke issues slowly and slug- 
gishly from the chimney-tops and hangs near 
the roofs, as if it dreaded to ascend into the 
dismal world of descending rain ; or else it is 
hard going up against such a tide ; or else it 
may be that the air is too .dull and sluggish to 
bear it upward. Only one bird is abroad, and 
there he is, poor little fellow, tugging, and 



326 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

turning, and fussing away up there in the rain, 
and seems hardly to know what he would bet- 
ter do or what course to pursue. 

There is no wind. The rain falls vertically 
down ; falls steadily and yet leisurely, as if 
there were an abundance of opportunity, and 
as if it had proposed to take its own time. 
And men with dripping umbrellas are hurry- 
ing along the wet sidewalk to their business 
places ; and there goes, with light, elastic step, 
one of the tenderer sex, whom industry and, 
perchance, necessity drives daily through 
storms as well as sunshine to some distant 
task. 

Such is the rain-storm. It may last through 
the. day or through several days. It will 
doubtless continue so long as the east or 
north-east wind continues. When, by some 
means, the wind veers round to the north- 
west the great cloud ocean overhead will soon 
be broken up, and the vapory fragments will 
be borne away eastward, and the blue sky and 
glorious sun will reappear, and the world will 
smile once more. 



LXVII. 



Thunder- $torm$* 




HE thunder-storm is another variety 
of storm from that described in my 
preceding sketch. It comes on more 
rapidly and suddenly — is usually more vio- 
lent — is often immediately preceded as well 
as accompanied by wind; it is, also, attended 
with lightning and thunder, and is of brief 
duration. It is more usually termed a Shower; 
and is rare in the Winter season, but very 
common in connection with the heats of 
Summer. 

Their approach is marked and regular, and 

Ml-' yhe re occurring in the day-time are more 

common in the after part of the day. Not 

long after noon, bright, rounded clouds are 

seen lying off in the west and north-west. 

327 



328 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

These, in fact, often show themselves in the 
morning hours, and, by the farmers, who, in 
the haying season, watch them carefully, are 
called "thunder-heads," as being often fore- 
runners of a coming shower. At length, 
stretched along beneath these *' thunder-heads '* 
and bordering the whole western horizon, is 
seen a dark, unbroken cloud, having a hue like 
that of the deep-blue ocean. This is a sure 
presage of a thunder-shower. It is, in fact, 
such a shower already commenced, and falling 
fast away twenty or thirty miles west of the 
beholder. Simultaneously with the appear- 
ance of that low, deep cloud is heard the 
rumbling of the distant thunder. In a little 
time the narrow cloud has widened and lifted 
itself up a number of degrees higher above 
the horizon. It stretches itself now from 
north to south, covering with blackness all 
the western sky. All along the upper border 
is rujfifled with broken clouds, angry and dark, 
while beneath these, down to the horizon, 
hangs the essential blackness — the awful 
storm-cloud itself, and ever and anon forked 
lightnings of ineffable brightness are play- 
ing over its surface, attended by thunderings, 



THUNDER-STORMS. 3 29 

now grown prompt, distinct, and awful. Still 
towers up more and more the immense cloud, 
and presently the air, thus far, perhaps, quiet 
and silent, becomes disturbed. A roaring, 
rushing sound is suddenly heard abroad, and 
a strong wind, as if poured directly down from 
those dark and overhanging border clouds, 
bursts upon the landscape, and the trees sway 
fearfully hither and thither under the mighty 
blast. The underlying world has assumed 
now the hue of the great cloud-ocean lying 
aloft. Turning the eye westward, the great 
shower is seen falling thick and fast within a 
mile or half a mile away, and you can dis- 
tinctly hear the roaring sound as it is pouring 
upon the earth. Instantly a few great drops 
fall where you are. Now fly to the nearest 
shelter, or in a minute more the drenching 
tempest will be right upon you ! And here it 
is ; and the rain is as if the gates that let 
down the ancient flood were again opened, 
and the world, for the time being, is a world of 
waters, while the accompanying lightnings and 
thunder-crashes are as if the day of doom 
were breaking upon the trembling earth. 
This, or something like this, is the thunder- 



330 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

storm ; one of the sublimest and most awful 
exhibitions which this world presents — nor is 
it without its dangers and its disasters. More 
or less, every Summer season, are smitten and 
killed by the lightning stroke as it falls, here 
and there, from the surcharged atmosphere. 
Buildings, also, are, of course, subject to the 
destructive blow, and, in many an instance, 
are wrecked and ruined by it, while tall forest 
trees often attract to themselves the fatal 
flash and are literally shivered into a thousand 
pieces. 

Like the earthquake and tornado, the thun- 
der-tempest has an angry look, and its voice is 
a voice of terror, and its touch is often de- 
struction and death. Why some of God's 
providential dispensations and arrangements 
are thus dark and dreadful, we may not, at 
present, fully understand. One thing should 
be ever kept in mind as an established cer- 
tainty, and that is, that this world is not 
designed as a final home and resting-place ; 
that while the bright side of our earthly ex- 
istence is ample and beautiful, yet there is a 
gloomy side withal. It is a sinful and erring 
world, and sin is the parent of wretchedness 



THUNDER-STORMS. 3 3 1 

and death ; and we are all of us involved, '' for 
all have sinned." 

Whoever of us, therefore, looks for perpetual 
sunshine in this earthly life will very certainly 
be disappointed. There will be many com- 
forts and much happiness, but trembling and 
sorrow are in store for us, and there is no 
other true and safe way than to secure an 
early interest in the great salvation of Christ. 

" Remember now thy Creator in the days 
of thy youth, while the evil days come not, 
and the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, 
I have no pleasure in them." 

"If a man live many years, and rejoice in 
them all, yet let him remember the days of 
darkness, for they shall be many." 




LXVIII. 



gnow-^torms* 




JlF the rain-storm and the thunder- 
storm I have already written. In 
Winter-time, and in our northern 
latitudes, the watery vapor becomes frozen in 
the air, and descends in the form of snow ; and 
covers the earth to a depth of several inches, 
or sometimes two or three feet. 

The snow-storm, like that of rain, may con- 
tinue for a day, or for two or three days ; and, 
like the rain-storm, it may be quiet, or accom- 
panied with a strong wind, driving the snow 
horizontally through the air, and heaping it up 
in drifts. Also, like the rain-storm, it gives 
out unmistakable tokens of its coming, which 
tokens, together with the storm itself, and 
some of its accompaniments, have been so 

332 



SNOW-STORMS. 333 

graphically and truthfully pictured to us by 
Whittier. 

"The sun, that brief December day, 
Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
And, darkly circled, gave, at noon, 
A sadder light than waning moon. 
Slow tracing down the thickened sky 
Its mute and ominous prophecy, 
A portent seeming less than threat, 
It sank from sight before it set. 
A chill no coat, however stout 
Of homespun stuff, could quite shut out, 
A hard, dull, bitterness of cold 
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 
Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 
The coming of the snow-storm told. 
The wind blew east ; we heard the roar 
Of ocean, on his Wintery shore. 
And felt the strong pulse, throbbing there, 
Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Unwarmed by any sunset light, 

The^reat day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm. 

As zig-zag wavering to and fro. 

Crossed and re-crossed the winged snow ; 

And ere the early bed-time came, 

The white drift piled the window frame. 

And through the glass the clothes-line posts 

Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 

So all night long the storm roared on ; 
The morning broke without a sun ; 
In tiny spherule traced with lines 



334 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS, 

Of nature's geometric signs, 
In starry flake and pellicle, 
All day the hoary meteor fell ; 
And when the second morning shone 
We looked upon a world unknown. 
On nothing we could call our own. 
Around the glistening wonder bent 
The blue walls of the firmament ; 
No cloud above, no earth below, 
A universe of sky and snow !" 

Snow-storms occur on our continent from 
thirty degrees northward ; but south of forty 
degrees the snow rarely hes throughout the 
Wintery season. North of forty degrees it is 
more permanent, and commonly covers the 
ground through the Winter ; while, sometimes, 
the snow, falling before the earth is much 
frozen, covers it deeply over, and shelters it 
from further frosts. Thus the roots of grass 
and grain, and other roots, are protected and 
benefited ; while, often, in more southern lati- 
tudes these roots are often killed, or much in- 
jured. So, also, the permanent Winter snows 
are favorable to traveling, and to business com- 
munications, forming, as they do, foundations 
for smooth roads, over which sleighs glide, 
and heavy loads are transported with speed 
and facility. 



LXIX. 



Jtnimal (Creation* 




HE earth is inhabited. It was de- 
signed to be the abode of Hfe and 
enjoyment. What would be works 
merely ^naterialy however beautiful or grand .'^ 
What would be a vast world like ours with not 
a solitary specimen of life upon its surface, or 
in the air above, or in the depths beneath } 

Such, indeed, is one of the Mosaic pictures. 
At the end of the fourth day land and water 
were separated, the green herbage had carpeted 
the landscapes of the world, the forests were 
abroad in their stately magnificence and beauty, 
and fruit-trees — every one that was "pleasant 
to the eye and good for food." Moreover, the 
sun and moon were in their places, and the 
great, glorious world was finished — finished as 

335 



336 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

truly as Solomon's gorgeous Temple, or the 
towering Pyramids, or the grand Coliseum 
were ever finished. 

The world was finished and waiting. But 
what a variety and a failure if the fourth day's 
work of creation had been the last day! A 
great and superb theater fitted up for nothing ! 
A brilliant paradise of far extent doomed to 
eternal vacuity and nothingness ! A world of 
lovely fruits, and every rich variety thereof, 
with no eye to see them, no lips to taste them ! 
A glorious instrument, holding within itself 
music that might charm a listening universe, 
yet whose keys must remain untouched, and 
no enchanting note awake from it to break the 
everlasting silence! 

Not such was the Creator s order — not such 
his wisdom. When the material work was 
finished the Life was at once ushered in. 
When the dwelling-place was ready, then were 
the dwellers introduced. When all excellent 
provisions were made, then came the varied 
capacities for enjoying them perfectly. And 
when the six days' work was completed, the 
fowls were flying above the earth in the open 
firmament of heaven, the fish of the sea were 







THE ANIMAL CREATION. 



ANIMAL CREATION. 337 

rejoicing in their native element, the cattle and 
creeping things, and beasts of the field, were 
abroad, and man, the crowning life of earth, 
was walking in. majesty and beauty amid the 
new-created scene. 

So life came — came directly from its great 
Author, came promptly, came in myriads of 
shapes and forms, came with the capacity and 
high command to communicate itself; and 
thus this great earth was peopled. Nor of all 
the phenomena glanced at in this series of 
sketches is there any thing pertaining to our 
globe at all comparable to the phenomena ap- 
pertaining to its magnificent system of life. 
Whether we contemplate its mysterious nature, 
its multiplicity of forms and species, its count- 
less diversity of shapes, its infinitude of in- 
dividuals, or its comprehensive capacity for 
enjoyment, all is marvelous in the extreme. 

Linger for a moment with one or two of 
these points. Contemplate, for example, the 
amazing diversity of shape and dimensions 
which life, on this earth, assumes. Contrast 
the whale, a hundred feet long and weighing 
a hundred tons, with the animalcule, 30,000 of 
which may inhabit a single drop of water, and 



338 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

35,000,000,000,000,000,000 of which would be 
requisite to weigh down the said whale. 

You and I are acquainted with a number of 
animal species ; but we must, needs become 
familiar with as maLny as 300,000 species be- 
fore we shall have examined them all, and as 
many as 100,000 of these species or kinds we 
must examine with a microscope in order to 
see them. 

Then glance at the enormous multiplication 
of life, especially as connected with one or 
two species of the animal world. The codfish 
annually produces more than 9,000,000 of 
eggs, and the sturgeon more than 7,000,000. 
So, also, mackerel and herrings multiply by 
millions. They often rush in shoals miles in 
length ; so thickly they swarm along, that a 
boat can make no headway through them. 
More than half a million herrings have been 
taken in a night by a single boat. Even of 
cod, a much larger fish, it is computed that 
the average quantity caught annually can not 
be less than 250,000,000. 

"He openeth His hands, and supplyeth the 
wants of every living thing.'' 



WnUdictcxt^, 



Y YOUNG FRIENDS— Our ram- 
bles are finished. I can not but hope 
that some of you — though the num- 
ber may be hmited — have consented to walk, 
and look, and meditate with me. If so, it is 
certainly a most interesting path that we have 
traveled, however inadequate and imperfect 
may have been the views we have taken of 
this great world and its appurtenances. We 
have traversed land and sea, and roamed amid 
mountains and along far-reaching plains, and 
sat down beside great rivers, and lingered, 
also, with their distant and secret sources. 
We have hovered near the frozen poles, and 
winged our way to torrid realms, and have lis- 
tened to the awful voices of dire earthquakes 
and volcanic thunders, and felt the dismal, 
frightful rush of the whirlwind storm. 

339 



340 THE EARTH AND ITS WONDERS. 

Yet were these mainly but exceptional feat- 
ures ; and we noted, in our roamings, that this 
great round world is, after all, adorned with 
multitudinous beauties, and is so made and ar- 
ranged as to be the fit abode of millions on 
millions of happy intelligences. A few of its 
luminous and beneficent aspects and provi- 
dential adaptations we saw and admired, a 
mere specimen or two of a whole world of di- 
vine perfections arrayed in colors of " living 
light" to the open and purified vision. 

Was it not pleasant to sojourn in many of 
this earth's sunny lands and repose amid fra- 
grant groves, and commune with each other 
on sunny eminences and along quiet shores, 
and mark, in our progress, every affluence of 
pleasant fruits, and glorious harvest-fields, and 
fair abodes, and herds abroad upon a thousand 
hills, and ''light-winged" commerce gliding 
over every sea ; a va§t arena of magnificence 
and splendor indescribable, and a brilliant step- 
ping-stonq, if its dwellers so ordain, to the 
heavenly paradise beyond ! 

Right here, my young friends, you and I 
part company ; yet we need not be separated 
from Nature's resplendent and royal associa- 



VALEDICTORY. 34.I 

tions, nor wander, for a single hour, from those 
peaceful and holy paths where God himself is 
walking and energizing. There, if we please, 
we shall feel the inspiration of his breath upon 
us ; and, if we listen, we shall hear him in the 
utterance of a thousand voices ; and as we 
look, and look long and carefully, we shall dis- 
cern, with a vision clearer than that of Elisha's 
servant, that the Earth is full of the glory of 
the Highest. 

Adieu, dear children! And a great and 
good life be yours ! 

I remain, ever, 

YOUR FRIEND AND SERVANT. 




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